  About the Artwork
  
  
  The Cat belongs to a group of paintings Oskar Kokoschka made in 1926, when his interest in animals intensified after meeting Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist and a future founder of the World Wildlife Fund. Kokoschka painted this work while he lived in the house of his dealer Paul Cassirer near Tiergarten, a vast park in Berlin, which may have provided another source of inspiration.  
	





The painting shows a loosely painted long-haired cat prowling near a pigeon’s nest on a balustrade set against the Berlin cityscape. Kokoschka merges the realist tradition of animal painting, rooted in close observation of nature, with expressionist gestural brushwork.
  
  
  Title
  The Cat
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1926
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
  ----------
  
  
  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 35 3/4 × 49 1/2 inches (90.8 × 125.7 cm)
  Framed: 47 7/16 × 61 1/4 × 3 3/8 inches (120.5 × 155.6 × 8.6 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Robert H. Tannahill
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  53.470
  
  
  Copyright
  © Estate of Oskar Kokoschka / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
