Handmade concertina album made by students of the Modescule der Stadt Wien in Vienna appealing to designer Oskar Kokoschka for help in purchasing art supplies (Addition 71), 1950

This addition to MSS 16758, The University of Virginia Collection on the History of Childhood, Parenting, and Family Building, contains a handmade fundraising appeal concertina album to the artist Oskar Kokoschka. The book was created by design students at the Modeschule der Stadt Wien (Fashion School of Vienna). In 1946, the school relocated to Schloss Hetzendorf, an eighteenth-century palace that sustained significant damage during the Second World War.Students were pressed to raise money for their art supplies amid the renovations. This fundraising appeal was addressed to exiled Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka, known for his contributions to expressionism. The album contains hand-cut stencil letters, hand-colored illustrations, and collages of paper, felt, yarn, tin foil, leather, and chipboard. The book reads: “Dear O.K. [Oscar Kokoschka] / if we would have brushes and colours to paint / coloured paper for handykraft / wools to weave / leather for gloves and bags / felt for millinery/magazines to get suggestions / spezial [sic] books for library/material for dressmaking / then all would be OK. Photographs of the students at rest and at work sewing, trimming, painting, weaving, and drawing are pasted on the verso of each collage. Kokoschka fled Vienna, Austria under the Nazi regime and never returned. It is unknown whether he responded to this appeal from the Modeschule students.