Robert Kohl

Wien 1891 - 1944 KZ Blechhammer, Schlesien

The painter, graphic artist and illustrator Robert Kohl was born in Vienna in 1892. Initially he attended classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School for Applied Art) and from 1912 until 1913 he studied at the Art Academy in Prague.
Before being conscripted to military service in 1916 and in the first few years after World War I the artist was employed as a book illustrator by publishing houses in Leipzig and Munich. At the beginning of the 1920s the focal point of his artistic work changed to painting. He created still-lifes, particularly paintings of flowers, landscapes, figures and portraits, which were exhibited by the "Hagenbund" and Vienna’s Künstlerhaus. The Albertina and the Graphic Collection in Leipzig possess prints, watercolors and drawings, while paintings can be viewed in the Leopold Museum and in the Vienna Museum. Robert Kohl emigrated to Paris in 1938. Three large crates with oil paintings, watercolors and drawings which his wife forwarded to him for exhibition purposes were lost at the outbreak of the war. Shortly before emigrating once more to the USA Kohl was denounced to the Gestapo by Vichy collaborators and deported to Blechhammer, from where he was never to return.