Prague, June 1 (CTK) – Oskar Kokoschka’s painting Prague was sold on Thursday for 52 million crowns including the auction surcharge, the highest price for which a work of art by Kokoschka has ever been sold in the Czech Republic, Jana Bryndova, from the organising gallery Arthouse Hejtmanek, has told CTK.
The starting price was 35 million crowns. Eventually, a buyer offered 52 million crowns, Bryndova said.
The painting is from an important Prague collection. It is Kokoschka’s second biggest picture from his series of views of the Czech capital.
It depicts a view from Kokoschka’s studio he leased at the Vltava River embankment since the summer 1934.
“The artist himself considered this view of Prague exceptional,” the organisers said.
Two years ago, the National Gallery staged an exhibition of Kokoschka’s work in Prague.
Kokoschka (1896-1980) came to Prague in 1934 from Vienna. After the Munich agreement in 1938 he fled the Nazi regime to Britain. After the war, he lived in Switzerland.
Previously, Kokoschka’s painting Frogs was auctioned for the highest price of 36.25 million crowns. He painted it in protest against the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into former Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform movement in 1968.
