  About the Artwork
  
  
  The Elbe Near Dresden is the second work in a series of seven townscapes Oskar Kokoschka painted between 1919 and 1923 looking from the window of his studio in the Dresden Art Academy. Employing a wide-angle perspective, he placed the river, the town, and the sky in three horizontal bands, dominated by intense colors. Kokoschka selected a high vantage point for the painting deliberately to “see what goes on in cities, and what happens to the people who live their miserable lives in those cities.”  


During his time in Dresden, the artist deepened his contacts with the expressionist Brücke (Bridge) circle, which sparked an evolution of his work. He began to employ impasto –– an application of a thick layers of paint –– to build up the surface of his paintings. Returning to the same subject repeatedly allowed Kokoschka to engage in these formal experimentations.  
	


Acquired by the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1921, The Elbe Near Dresden was the first Kokoschka painting to enter an American museum.
  
  
  Title
  The Elbe Near Dresden
  
  
  Artwork Date
  ca. 1921
  
  Artist
  Oskar Kokoschka
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1886-1980
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Austrian
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 23 1/2 × 31 1/2 inches (59.7 × 80 cm)
  Framed: 28 3/16 × 36 1/8 × 1 1/2 inches (71.6 × 91.8 × 3.8 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  City of Detroit Purchase
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  21.203
  
  
  Copyright
  © Estate of Oskar Kokoschka / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
