Rudiger Goerner works as Professor of German with Comparative Literature at the Queen Mary University of London. He is Founding Director of the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations, and has authored many acclaimed books including biographies of Rainer Maria Rilke and the poet Georg Trakl.
'Goerner narrates [...] in a compelling way' - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; 'With appropriately rhapsodic descriptions, Goerner shows how incredibly [...] worldly this petty bourgeois from Poechlarn has been' - Die Welt; ‘An unconventional but long-awaited approach to Kokoschka’s rich oeuvre. Rüdiger Görner does not restrict his considerations to the painter and his formal characteristics but rather sets Kokoschka’s singular character against a social, literary and political background in a century of European turmoil. [...] Görner sheds light on how contemporaries such as Thomas Mann and Karl Kraus viewed Kokoschka’s oeuvre. This new biography is a holistic reflection on Kokoschka as a person, with his paintings and writings, his enemies and lovers, his agonies and his hopes’ Catherine Hug Kunsthaus Zürichs; ‘Rüidger Görner does not separate Kokoschka’s art from his life. The artist was driven, always trying to cross boundaries, be they moral, political or social. The veracity of his art was the result of these frictions never being hidden. Görner works along the same principles, creating a convincing book and presenting the entire Oskar Kokoschka, perhaps for the first time, and leaves the reader with an unforgettable impression’ Johann Konrad Eberlein, former director of the Institute of Art History at University of Graz