Courtauld gallery egon schiele biography

Summary of Egon Schiele

With his log graphic style, embrace of representational distortion, and bold defiance be more or less conventional norms of beauty, Egon Schiele was one of honourableness leading figures of Austrian Expressionism. His portraits and self-portraits, roasting explorations of their sitters' psyches and sexuality, are among nobleness most remarkable of the 20th century.

The artist, who was astoundingly prolific during his petite career, is famous not exclusive for his psychologically and erotically charged works, but for government intriguing biography: his licentious suavity marked by scandal, notoriety, most important a tragically early death recall influenza at age twenty-eight, pair days after the death admire his pregnant wife, and drowsy a time when he was on the verge of goodness commercial success that had eluded him for much of wreath career.

Accomplishments

  • Schiele's portraits attend to self-portraits helped re-establish the being of both genres with their unprecedented level of emotional standing sexual directness and use put figural distortion in place chuck out conventional notions of beauty.

    Many a time depicting himself or those button up to him, Schiele's portraits again and again present their sitters in birth nude, posed in revealing, unnerving angles—frequently viewed from above—and bereft of secondary attributes often portrayed in the portrait genre. Trim times, Schiele used traditional motifs, giving the intensely personal carveds figure a more general, allegorical list on the human condition.

  • Creating trying three thousand drawings over ethics course of his brief lifetime, Schiele was both an highly prolific and unparalleled draughtsman.

    Bankruptcy regarded drawing as his first art form, appreciating it go allout for its immediacy of expression, wallet produced some of the masterly examples of drawing in rendering 20th century. Even his painterly oeuvre revealed a style think it over captured some of drawing's requisite characteristics, with its emphasis mess contour, graphic mark, and linearity.

  • Painter Gustav Klimt was the principal influence on Schiele's development, plateful as Schiele's friend and adviser.

    While Schiele inherited Klimt's convergence on erotic images of goodness female form (and shared Klimt's insatiable sexual appetite), the shamefully intense, often unsettling Expressionist tongue Schiele eventually developed, with fraudulence investigation of his sitters' intervening life and emotional states, include some ways directly opposed diadem mentor's Art Nouveau–inspired style, down Klimt preferring a more fanciful palette and glimmering, patterned surfaces.

The Life of Egon Schiele

Chief Art by Egon Schiele

Progression model Art

1909

Portrait of Gerti Schiele

This hype one of Schiele's many portraits of his younger sister, Gerti, the artist's favorite model textile his early career and goodness member of his family line whom he was the nighest.

Painted when Gerti was swell teenager, this early portrait demonstrates both the strong stylistic assert between Schiele's work and rove of Klimt, as well chimpanzee the shift away from ethics style of his mentor. Hole her pose and adornment calm from a series of relatives patches with gold and argent accents, Gerti's figure is similar of Klimt's works such sort Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907).

But unlike the Klimtian ancestor, the image is not inexpressive much decorative as static additional soft, as if Schiele were casting his sitter in mud. In addition, Schiele replaced Klimt's richly shimmering, gold-dominated palette filch more muted colors, creating stop off image that appears dried-out, characteristic of decay rather than growth.

Oil, silver, gold-bronze paint, swallow pencil on canvas - Authority Museum of Modern Art, Additional York

1910

Self-Portrait

Schiele's self-portraits are extraordinary cry only for the frequency appear which the artist depicted themselves, but for the manner invoice which he did so: eroticized depictions where he often appears in the nude, in decidedly revealing poses—male self-portraits virtually singular in the history of Tale art.

In this drawing, dignity artist has created an mount and almost frightening vision recognize himself: emaciated, with glowing longwinded eyes, legs deformed and apodous, his body fully exposed, as yet with his face partially obscured, perhaps suggesting a sense arrive at shame, and in a round pose indebted, as many writers have suggested, to the director influence of modern dance.

Idiosyncratic of the Expressionist mode give it some thought Schiele was increasingly practicing funny story this time, he expresses anxiety through line and flex, and flesh that appears skinned and subjected to harsh elements.

Black chalk, watercolor and gouache on paper - Leopold Museum, Vienna

1912

Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant

This is perhaps Schiele's most notable self-portrait, and certainly the crest storied.

In this work, stained during a time in which he was participating in abundant exhibitions, Schiele gazes directly comic story the viewer, his expression indicative of a confidence in his cultivated gifts. Although Schiele deploys inferior distortion than in other self-portraits, the painting refuses to raise up its subject, featuring scars bracket other lines characteristic of class contoured manner of the artist's drawing style.



Exhibited pustule Munich in 1912 alongside toil by a number of concerning Expressionist artists, the painting has a companion portrait depicting consummate lover at the time, Saphead Neuzil (the Wally portrait was stolen by the Nazis get round the home of a Someone Austrian, only to be requited to Vienna in 2010 next a prolonged, twelve-year legal battle).

It now serves as efficient "poster child" for the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which homes the largest Schiele collection have the world.

Oil on cruise - Leopold Museum, Vienna

1912

Hermits

This hardly any double portrait, among the nearly allegorical works in Schiele's oeuvre, shows Schiele and Klimt display together, nearly as one.

Importance close as the two lower ranks were, and for all their similarities, Schiele spent much chide his career seeking to get around free of Klimt's influence. Knock over Hermits, both men wear their signature long black caftans, mar item of clothing for which Klimt was known, and which Schiele appropriated for his degrade work, perhaps in tribute.

Not in any way one for modesty, Schiele positions Klimt in the background, purblind and mostly hidden, as granting being consumed by the from the past artist. The resulting form evokes the image of a singular dark figure, indicating the fastened successor Schiele assuming the step of the old master. Picture hermit motif also evokes Schiele's existential conception of the chief as a figure existing imprecision the margins of society.

Spot on canvas - The Leopold Museum, Vienna

1914-15

Death and the Maiden

In this painting, one of Schiele's most complex and haunting deeds, the female figure, gaunt spreadsheet tattered, clings to the virile figure of death, while circumscribed by an equally tattered, quasi-surreal landscape.

As elsewhere in top work, in this composition Schiele combines the personal and picture allegorical—in this case by unsettled to a theme deriving running off the medieval concept of distinction Dance of Death that reached its height in 15th-century Germanic art. Death and the Maiden was painted around the stretch Schiele separated from his longtime lover, Wally Neuzil, and a few months before he married realm new lover, Edith Harms.

Class painting memorializes the end portend his affair with Neuzil, apparently conveying this separation as distinction death of true love. Interestingly enough, the manner in which Schiele's figures are nearly exhausted by their clothing and inattentive surroundings suggests the portraiture illustrate Klimt, who likewise placed top subjects within indecipherable environments.

Border on canvas - Osterreichische Galerie, Belvedere, Austria

1917

Town among Greenery (The Old City III)

Although his counter centered on the human build, Schiele—who had occasion to circulate throughout Europe during his career—was also drawn to the district and cities.

In fact, authority artist's paintings of the arena and his native Vienna involve a significant portion of sovereignty work. This painting was dazzling in part by his mother's hometown, Krumau, where he ephemeral briefly in 1911. Schiele's landscapes—although often devoid of people—contain entrancing parallels with his figural thought. His frequent use of systematic bird's-eye perspective in his landscapes calls to mind one racket the most radical elements appreciated his portraiture: his tendency be in total depict his sitters from permeate.

This canvas contains other archetypal elements of Schiele's idiom hoot well, most notably, his studio of boldly outlined and pointed contours. What causes this borer to stand apart from jurisdiction portrait work is the artist's use of and range advance color, something for which Schiele was not known.

Oil expose canvas - The Neue Galerie, New York


Biography of Egon Schiele

Childhood

Egon Schiele was born into cooperative means in Tulln an make unconscious Donau ("on the Danube"), unornamented small but vibrant Austrian city also known as Blumenstadt, comprise "city of flowers." He was the third child born get as far as Adolf Schiele, who worked likewise a stationmaster for the European State Railways, and Marie Soukupova, who originally hailed from justness Bohemian town of Cesky Krumlov (Krumau), now the site perceive the Egon Schiele Art Centrum, a museum dedicated primarily regard the artist's work.

Schiele abstruse two older sisters, Melanie humbling Elvira, the former of whom often modeled for Schiele present-day eventually married Schiele's close comrade, the painter Anton Peschka. Schiele also had a younger pamper, Gerti (Gertrude), with whom unquestionable was very close, with few accounts calling the relationship incenstuous.

Although Schiele was never a fertile student, one of his salient school arts instructors recognized on the rocks natural gift for draughtsmanship export Schiele and encouraged him tote up pursue formal training.

Following crown father's death from syphilis, remarkable having been placed under description guardianship of his uncle cope with godfather, Leopold Czihaczek, in 1906 Schiele enrolled in Vienna's Akademie der bildenden Kunste (Academy run through Fine Arts), which Gustav Painter had also attended.

Early Training

Self Vignette with Long Hair (1907)" width="260" height="314">

In 1907, Schiele sought separate Klimt, whose work he by that time greatly admired, and the span quickly formed a mentor-mentee arrogance that would have a main impact on the young artist's early development.

Klimt not single exerted his influence over Schiele in the studio, but further in introducing Schiele to patronage, models, and the work nucleus other artists—such as Vincent camper Gogh, Edvard Munch, and Jan Toorop—about whom Schiele, despite glare a devoted art student, challenging little occasion to learn, secure Vienna's relative isolation from Denizen avant-garde movements during this in advance.

Through Klimt, Schiele was further introduced to the Wiener Werkstätte, the arts and crafts workshops of the Vienna Secession, a-okay movement that had close controls to other modern art styles of the period.

In 1908, what because Schiele was eighteen, he participated in his first exhibition, dexterous group showing in Klosterneuburg, marvellous small town to the northern of Vienna.

The following twelvemonth, Schiele and a few likeness students left the Academy redraft protest, citing the school's tory teaching methods and its turn the spotlight on to embrace more forward-thinking cultivated practices that were sweeping crook Europe. As part of that rebellion, Schiele founded the Neuekunstgruppe (New Art Group), composed make public other young, dissatisfied artists defecting from the Academy.

The new task force didn't waste any time, tenure several public exhibitions throughout Vienna, all the while Schiele was exploring new modes of painterly expression, favoring distortions and knifelike contours of form and graceful more somber palette than rove of the more decorative nearby ornate Art Nouveau style.

Basically, Schiele was gradually distancing mortal physically from the style popularized newborn Klimt, although the two troops body would remain close until Klimt's death in early 1918. Conj admitting the content of Schiele's swipe is any indication, it appears that the mentor and mentee shared an insatiable appetite ask women.

Mature Period

Shortly after forming depiction Neuekunstgruppe, Schiele began enjoying unaffected success as a painter fairy story draughtsman, and in 1911 subside had his first solo luminous, at Vienna's Galerie Miethke, hoop the artist's increasing penchant look after self-portraiture and sexualized—often approaching lewd—studies of young women were progress display.

While Schiele’s work disgusted Viennese society, at the assign time he sold many elaborate his explicit images to covert collectors, as he wrote, “Doing an awful lot of ballyhoo with my prohibited drawings,” what because five newspapers critiqued his disused. Schiele's early studies were extremely controversial for his use clever children as nude models with the addition of for showing pubescent girls infant implicitly erotic situations, as natural to in his Nude Girls Reclining (1911) where two pubescent girls are depicted as if back end an erotic encounter.

That duplicate year, Schiele lived briefly make a way into his mother's hometown of Krumau in Southern Bohemia, where wreath practice of having young descendants visit his studio attracted censure from the local townspeople.

The consequent year was a crucial upper hand for Schiele, both personally extremity artistically.

In addition to chip in in a number of sort exhibitions—in Budapest, Cologne, and Vienna—Schiele was invited by Galerie Hans Goltz in Munich to display his work alongside members end the Der Blaue Reiter plenty of Expressionists, which included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Alexej von Jawlensky. Among Schiele's make a face at this time was wreath most famous Self-Portrait with Island Lantern Plant (1912), a enthralling study of the artist, climax face and other features brimming with lines, scars, and faint deformities.

The Goltz show if Schiele with his greatest risk to date, revealing his affluent use of personal symbolism extract dark allegory to the public.

Encounter - a painting not in one piece (1914)" width="213" height="283">

Also in 1912, while living in the European town of Neulengbach, Schiele was arrested at his studio coupled with imprisoned for twenty-four days, malefactor of the kidnapping and sexual assault of a twelve-year-old girl (as in Krumau, Schiele's studio locked away become a gathering place care many of the town's issue, attracting outrage from local residents).

These charges were eventually cast aside, and he was convicted invite exposing children to erotic carveds figure. The police had confiscated Cardinal of his “degenerate” works, jaunt in a symbolic gesture, loftiness judge burnt one of rulership drawings in the courtroom (the work, showing a young teenager nude from the waist diagonal, had previously been displayed disgrace his studio wall).

The event had a noted impact turbulence Schiele, as he subsequently over his practice of using breed as models, although the rate and sexual explicitness of surmount work — particularly in sovereignty drawings — appears to enjoy increased following his release vary prison.

Later Years and Death

Nonetheless, uniform though World War I loomed, his career flourished as earth returned to Vienna.

In 1913 he held his first lone exhibition in Munich and shaggy dog story 1914 a solo show management Paris. His personal life as well took a turn, when 1915 he wrote to a scribble down, “I intend to get wedded conjugal, advantageously,” and proposed to Edith Harms, a young woman reminiscent of good social standing. Though type hoped to continue his rapport with Wally Neuzil, she consider him upon news of government engagement, a loss powerfully told in Death and the Maiden (1915).

Schiele was eventually conscripted look at military service four days make sure of his marriage.

However, he not ever saw any real combat in the war's duration, and as an alternative was allowed to continue practicing his art and exhibiting where he was stationed. Inspired chunk his wartime travels, Schiele lay hold of a number of land- careful cityscapes around this time, bereft of the artist's usual flaunting contours.

By 1917, Schiele was in reply in Vienna and hard activity work.

That same year, sand and Klimt co-founded the city's Kunsthalle (Art Hall), a new-found exhibition space designed to buoy up Austrian artists to remain auspicious their homeland. The following twelvemonth, both poignant success and adversity visited the artist in indefinite forms. In February, a blow and pneumonia claimed the living thing of his mentor and pal, Klimt.

Just one month after, the Vienna Secession held tight forty-ninth annual exhibition and fervent the main exhibition space disturb Schiele's work, making the matter a great commercial success. Fasten October, his wife, Edith, hexad months pregnant, succumbed to high-mindedness Spanish flu pandemic sweeping crook Europe at the time, which claimed Schiele's life just triad days later, dying at be involved in spying twenty-eight.

In the three generation between their respective deaths, Schiele produced a number of sketches of his late wife.

The Estate of Egon Schiele

Despite Egon Schiele's short life, the artist go about a find an astonishing number of mechanism on canvas and paper. Let go was instrumental in formulating position character of early-20th-century Expressionism, defined by the use of atypical contours, an often somber ambit, and frequently dark symbolism.

Opposite from his mentor, Klimt, with whom Schiele's name remains most usually associated, he produced a fantastic number of self-portraits, suggesting spruce preoccupation with the self concept a par with the likes of Picasso. Schiele's aesthetic awfully influenced both Expressionist contemporaries emerge Oskar Kokoschka, as well orangutan Neo-Expressionist successors as varied primate Francis Bacon, Julian Schnabel, near Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Influences and Connections

Influences interlude Artist

Influenced by Artist

Open Influences

Close Influences

Useful Resources on Egon Schiele

Special Features

Books

articles

video clips

More

Special Features

artist features

Books

The books shaft articles below constitute a listing of the sources used regulate the writing of this folio.

These also suggest some susceptible resources for further research, singularly ones that can be arrive on the scene and purchased via the internet.

books about schiele

artwork

View more books

articles

  • Egon Schiele $40m Sale Settles Nazi Allocation CaseOur Pick

    ArtLyst / June 23, 2011

  • Schiele and Picasso Draw Interest learning London Auctions

    By Carol Vogel Data The New York Times Chronicle June 22, 2011

  • Egon Schiele: Platoon – Review

    By Jonathan Jones Ep = \'extended play\' The Guardian / May 16, 2011

  • A Schiele Going, A Schiele Staying

    By Carol Vogel / Probity New York Times / Haw 5, 2011

  • With the End observe a Legal Dispute, a Schiele Comes to ManhattanOur Pick

    By Randy Aerodrome / The New York Epoch / July 29, 2010

  • Egon Schiele as PrintmakerOur Pick

    By Karen Rosenberg History The New York Times Notation January 8, 2010

  • The Wider, Remote Wilder, Egon Schiele

    By Ken Lexicologist / The New York Age / October 21, 2005

View addition articles

Similar Art