Oskar Kokoschka: Letter to Albert Ehrenstein (1937)
Oskar Kokoschka: Letter to Albert Ehrenstein (1937)
Sometimes I am really exhausted now, I did not know this feeling before.
Oskar Kokoschka to Albert Ehrenstein in the autumn of 1937
When this letter was written, the painter Oskar Kokoschka and the writer Albert Ehrenstein had already lived in exile for a few years, Kokoschka in Czechoslovakia and Ehrenstein in Switzerland. They shared a long friendship, ever since the painter made illustrations for the writer’s publication Tubutsch (1911).
In the letter shown here, Kokoschka expresses his excitement about working together again, but Ehrenstein’s novel has never been realized. The familiar tone of the letter, as well as the comments about other exiles such as Heinrich Mann and Max Oppenheimer, reflect the close relationship between them.
Further reading:
Oskar Kokoschka: Briefe III. 1934-1953. Herausgegeben von Olda Kokoschka und Heinz Spielmann. Düsseldorf: Claasen 1986
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