Egon Schiele
Egon Schiele, or, as it is alternatively titled, The Art of Egon Schiele, is a bibliographic work of artist Egon Schiele’s life alongside color reproductions of his sketches and paintings. The book was authored by Erwin Mitsch, longtime curator at the Albertina in Vienna, and published by Phaidon in 1993. Also included in this post are sketches and paintings from an exhibition catalog by Galerie St. Etienne in New York, entitled Egon Schiele (1890-1918); Watercolors and Drawings from American Collections. The first five illustrations belong to Erwin Mirsch’s book while the remaining five come from the Galerie St. Etienne’s catalog.
Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter who lived in Vienna his entire life. He was accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1906, however he would leave the Academy in 1909 and found the “New Art Group” with a few of his friends and acquaintances. The formation and beliefs of this (short-lived) group mirrored the one started by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and his contemporaries, The Vienna Secession (which was the subject of a prior post). Schiele evidentially felt stifled by what he viewed as a more conservative art form. Around the same year he left the academy, Schiele would be taken on as a mentee by Klimt who would help him further expand his style.
The most obvious similarity between Klimt and Schiele’s style would be how they elongated the limbs of their portraiture figures; this can be seen the most in the first few paintings Schiele made while under Klimt's tutelage. Although, where Klimt’s figures appear sensual, Schiele’s are spidery and thin. German art critic Julius Meire-Graefe described them as “shockingly thin, weak of bone and precociously diseased’. In my opinion, this is an unfair dismissal of Shiele’s work and undercuts the amount of skill Schiele demonstrates in his art. The figures seem always in movement, contorting their bodies in ways that appear almost torturous, and their lines are bold and jagged; Schiele has created a style that was so uniquely himself.
Egon Schiele died from influenza on October 31st 1918, only a few months after his wife, Edith. He was only 28 years old.
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– Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Art History Fieldworker
