In 2025, the Kokoschka Museum Pöchlarn is dedicating itself to Oskar Kokoschka’s decades of work as a teacher and his intensive involvement with educational issues. The exhibition spans a wide range from his first teaching experiences shortly after finishing his studies at the Vienna School of Applied Arts to his great, international successes as a teacher in the first post-war decades.

Kokoschka’s early work as a drawing teacher at Eugenie Schwarzwald’s private school in 1911 ended in a scandal – the school authorities had him dismissed. His teaching style seemed too unorthodox and not academic enough. The international success of his “School of Seeing”, founded in Salzburg in 1953, stands in stark contrast to this. Kokoschka’s teaching focused on the figurative depiction of moving models. The way he worked in his painting class and the tremendous impact of his personality became a formative experience for numerous students.