Egon Schiele
The Expressionist of the naked body.
Egon Schiele drew and painted twisted, emaciated bodies and self-portraits. He died of the Spanish flu at the age of 28.
Egon Schiele was born in 1890 in Tulln, near Vienna. His father was a stationmaster and died when his son was fourteen. Schiele was admitted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts as early as 1906 but found the teaching rigid and left after three years. In 1907 he sought out Gustav Klimt, who became his mentor and helped him with contacts and models.
He soon left Klimt's ornamental style behind. His line became sharp, angular and nervous. He drew and painted thin, twisted bodies and faces, often naked, in awkward poses against an empty background. His many self-portraits show him tense, grimacing and exposed. He wanted to depict human anxiety and sexuality without embellishment, and he is regarded as one of the great draughtsmen of Expressionism.
In 1911 he lived with the model Wally Neuzil, first in Krumau and then in Neulengbach. In 1912 he was arrested there and spent 24 days in prison, accused of showing immoral drawings to children. In 1915 he married Edith Harms, and that same year he was called up into the army, though he was spared service at the front. Portrait of Wally and Self-Portrait with Physalis, both of 1912, are in the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which has the world's largest Schiele collection.
In 1918 he had his great breakthrough at the Secession exhibition in Vienna, and after Klimt's death that same year he was seen as Austria's leading artist. But in the autumn the family was struck by the Spanish flu. Edith, who was pregnant, died on 28 October and Schiele himself three days later, only 28 years old. His last major painting, The Family, with a child who was never born, is in the Belvedere in Vienna.
Schiele's work was long considered shocking, and it still provokes debate about the gaze and power. Today he is one of the best-known names in Austrian art. His way of using line to express emotion has influenced many later artists.