Demeter Koko: in the aviary

Demeter Koko

post impressionist painter 

(German: "spät impressionist Maler") 
(Linz Austria 1891 - 1929 Linz)

I always thought by deciding Emil Pottner (1872-1942) as my favorite bird (poultry) artist  that this choice would be final. He was just the most wonderful and charming painter/drawer who happened also to be one be of the finest printmakers that ever lived.  

But last week during my daily rounds of research I stumbled over another wonderful artist who loved to paint poultry. He died very young of "consumption". Tuberculosis wearing the patient so down, this horrible desease seemed for early observers and diagnosis to "consume" the patient from the inside, lending the common name to the desease. We live in a truly wonderful and blessed age 100 years later tuberculosis is in our modern world almost eradicated and curable.  

Demeter Koko was trained in the painting school of Bertha von Tarnoczy (1846-1936) in Linz and then went to study in Heinrich Knirr's (1862-1944) painting school in Munich and also with  celebrated animal painter Heinrich von Zügel (1850-1941). He has a wonderful light and brilliant pallet.

He worked from the the end of WW1 untill his untimely death as a painter of animals in Linz and was during his short life famous for his paintings and drawings of poultry. Just like Emil Pottner who also originated from Austria (Salzburg) but had settled in Petzow near Berlin. Potter was murdered in the Holocaust.

Demeter Koko had an artistic sister Sophie Koko but I have not been able to find much about her life or career. Her portrait was painted by her brother while his  portrait was painted by Karl Hauk (1898-1974). 

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.