Oskar Kokoschka
1939
Oil paint on canvas
77.8 x 60 cm
After having fled to London from Prague on the eve of the Second World War, Kokoschka settled briefly in the Cornish fishing village of Polperro. His work started to register the tense wartime situation. Here, the view of a fishing boat sheltering in the harbour includes the unsettling detail of a woman mourning over a prostrate body, on the lower right. Fighting seagulls and a large crab appears in the foreground, intended as representations of aggression and threat.