Market in Tunis, 1928-29 (oil on canvas)

This view of the Place Bab Souika in Tunis was painted from the roof of a greengrocer’s shop. The city’s great domed mosque can be seen at the far left of the work. Kokoschka attempted to achieve a “two focus perspective” in an elliptical horizon, similar to the effect of a wide-angled photographic lens. The foreground gives a sense of the bright colours and ceaseless flow of human activity that so enthralled Kokoschka on his trip through Africa. Recalling his rooftop vantage point, Kokoschka wrote later that after having worked on this canvas for a week “with the painting almost completed, I fell through the roof of the shop, easel and all”.