FRAU IN BLAU. Oskar Kokoschka und Alma Mahler

In the organizer's words:

Woman in blue
Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler
March 20, 2025 - June 22, 2025
Free admission. Booking of free time slot tickets is recommended and will be possible online from January 30, 2025.

For the first time in over 30 years, Oskar Kokoschka's works inspired by Alma Mahler will be presented together again in one exhibition. This important group of works is both a testimony to the times and a major expressionist work. The almost 30 works - mostly on loan from international collections - reveal the drama of the love affair and mark important turning points in Kokoschka's painting style.In Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century, Oskar Kokoschka fell in love with Alma Mahler, a well-known salonnière of Viennese society and widow of the composer Gustav Mahler. The obsessive and ultimately unrequited love that Oskar Kokoschka developed for Alma Mahler within a very short time found expression in numerous works created between 1912 and 1922. He reached the peak of this creative obsession around 1919, when he had a life-size doll made in Alma Mahler's likeness. Woman in Blue (1919) was the first painting to have the doll as its subject. Click here for the exhibition information.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and supported by RWE.

Price information:

To attend the exhibition opening and launch event on 19.3.2025 and to visit the exhibition on all other opening days (from 20.3.), it is necessary to book an online ticket free of charge. Unfortunately, seating capacity is very limited. There may be waiting times when visiting the exhibition on 19.3.2025. We ask for your understanding.