(Pöchlarn 1886–1980 Villeneuve)
“Stilleben mit Zentaur”–“Il ratto della bella Elena”, 1949, on the reverse monogrammed OK, dated 1948 by another hand, oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm, framed Fondation Oskar Kokoschka, Online Catalogue Raisonné of the paintings, 1949/1
Johann Winkler/Katharina Erling 382
Hans M. Wingler 1956 356
Edith Hoffmann 1947

Exhibitions:
Oskar Kokoschka, Rome, Palazzo Barberini, 3. December 1959 end of January 1960, catalogue with texts by Michelangelo Masciotta, Oskar Kokoschka and Jacopo Recupero. Rez.: Francesca Pardi: “Mostre romane: Oskar Kokoschka.”
In: Nuova antologia, 95 (1960), vol. 478, p. 138-141 (other than catalogue)
Oskar Kokoschka 1886–1980, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, Nov. 1981 – Feb. 1982, catalogue with text by Carmine Benincasa and Walter Zettl, colour ill. p. 72

Literature:
Michelangelo Masciotta: Kokoschka - Firenze: Del Turco Ed. 1949.
(Maestri moderni), with Catalogue Raisonné 1939-1949, no. 41;
Joseph P. Hodin: Kokoschka und Hellas – Vienna, Euro Art/Europa-Verlag 1975, colour ill. p. 58 (full-page)

Provenance:
Collection Elena and Leopold Zorzi
European Private Collection

… Another work is the “Still Life with Centaur” from 1949. On it two erotic scenes are depicted alongside a still-life of a greatly enlarged melon acting as a repoussoir in the foreground. On the right a centaur, a creature half man, half animal (the nature of man depicted more sharply than all Freudian definitions), is kidnapping a woman, and on the left the “Leda and Swan” motif is depicted against a classical background with columns and curtain symbolising the intimacy of erotic action in contrast to the shameless sexual representations of the present.

From the cited literature by J.P. Hodina