Egon Schiele

Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.

• Name — Egon Schiele • Birth Name — Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele • Born — 12 June 1890 • Birthplace — Tulln an der Donau, Austria-Hungary • Died — 31 October 1918 • Place of death — Vienna, Austria-Hungary • Field — Painting, drawing, printmaking • Training — Akademie der Bildenden Künste • Movement — Expressionism • Notable Works — * Seated Woman with Bent Knees • Cardinal and Nun • Death and the Maiden • The Family

• Illustration — Self-portrait, 1906 (aged 16) Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was born on 12 June 1890 in Tulln, Lower Austria. His father, Adolf Schiele, the station master of the Tulln station in the Austrian Federal Railways, was born in 1851 in Vienna to Karl Ludwig Schiele, a German from Ballenstedt and Aloisia Schimak; Egon's mother Marie (Soukup) was born in 1861 in Český Krumlov (Krumau) to Franz Soukup, a Czech father from Mirkovice, and Aloisia Poferl, a German Bohemian mother from Český Krumlov. Schiele had three sisters, Elvira, Melanie and Gertrude. Elvira died as a child of congenital syphilis. Before the birth of Schiele, his mother had suffered the stillbirths of three sons. According to family lore, Adolf Schiele had contracted syphilis during his honeymoon in Trieste, when he had visited a brothel after his new wife, scared of the consummation of the marriage, fled their bedroom. When the couple had sex a few days later, her husband then passed on the disease to his wife. As a child, Schiele was fascinated by trains and would spend many hours drawing them. Seeing Schiele's drawing as a detriment to his son's schoolwork, his father destroyed these sketchbooks. Schiele Sr. was known to have had an interest in collecting minerals and butterflies, and also liked to draw. Schiele's family life was however deeply influenced by his father's illness and as the syphilis progressed it left him in a state of mental confusion and would oftentimes cast him into fits of rage. When he was 11 years old, Schiele moved to the nearby city of Krems (and later to Klosterneuburg) to attend secondary school. To those around him, Schiele was regarded as a strange child. Shy and reserved, he did poorly at school except in athletics and drawing, and was usually in classes made up of younger pupils. He also displayed a sexual interest in his younger sister Gertrude (who was known as Gerti), and his father once broke down the door of a locked room that Egon and Gerti were in to see what they were doing, only to discover them developing film. When he was sixteen, he took the twelve-year-old Gerti by train to Trieste without permission and spent a night in a hotel room with her.

• Illustration — Portrait of Arthur Rössler, 1910 In 1907, Schiele sought out Gustav Klimt, who generously mentored younger artists. Klimt took a particular interest in the young Schiele, buying his drawings, offering to exchange them for some of his own, arranging models for him, and introducing him to potential patrons. He also introduced Schiele to the Wiener Werkstätte, the arts and crafts workshop connected with the Vienna Secession. Schiele's earliest works between 1907 and 1909 contain strong similarities with those of Klimt, as well as influences from Art Nouveau. In 1908, Schiele had his first exhibition, in Klosterneuburg. Schiele left the academy in 1909, after completing his third year, and founded the Neukunstgruppe ("New Art Group") with other dissatisfied students. In his early years, Schiele was strongly influenced by Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka. Although imitations of their styles, particularly with the former, are noticeably visible in Schiele's first works, he soon evolved his own distinctive style. • Illustration — Portrait of Anton Peschka 1909 • Illustration — Bedroom in Neulengbach, 1911 Klimt invited Schiele to exhibit some of his work at the 1909 Vienna Kunstschau, where he encountered the work of Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh among others. Once free of the academy's constraints, Schiele began to explore not only the human form, but also sexuality. Schiele's work was already daring, but it went a bold step further with the inclusion of Klimt's decorative eroticism and figurative distortions. He also painted tributes to Van Gogh's Sunflowers as well as landscapes and still lifes. In 1910, Schiele began experimenting with nudes, and within a year, a definitive style featuring emaciated, sickly-coloured figures, often with strong sexual overtones, began to emerge. Schiele also began painting and drawing children. • Illustration — Egon Schiele photographed by Anton Josef Trčka, 1914 Schiele began to participate in what would be numerous group exhibitions, including those of the Neukunstgruppe in Prague in 1910 and Budapest in 1912; the Sonderbund, Cologne, in 1912; and several Secessionist shows in Munich, beginning in 1911. In 1911, at the age of twenty-one, Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Wally Neuzil, who lived with him in Vienna and served as a model for some of his most striking paintings. She had previously modelled for Klimt and might have been one of his mistresses. Schiele and Wally wanted to escape what they perceived as the claustrophobic Viennese milieu, and went to the small town of Krumau in southern Bohemia. Krumau was the birthplace of Schiele's mother; today it is the site of a museum dedicated to Schiele. Despite Schiele's family connections in Krumau, he and his lover were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their bohemian lifestyle, including his alleged employment of the town's teenage girls as models. Progressively, Schiele's work grew more complex and thematic, and he eventually began dealing with themes such as death and rebirth.

• Illustration — Schiele's drawing of his prison cell in Neulengbach Together, the couple moved to Neulengbach, 35 km west of Vienna, seeking inspirational surroundings and an inexpensive studio in which to work. As had been the case in the capital, young people and teenagers gathered in Schiele's new studio in Neulengbach. Schiele's way of life aroused much animosity among the town's inhabitants, and in April 1912 he was arrested under suspicion of kidnapping and seducing a girl of 13. When the police came to his studio to place Schiele under arrest, they seized more than a hundred drawings which they considered pornographic. Schiele was imprisoned while awaiting his trial. When his case was brought before a judge, the charges were dropped, but the artist was found guilty of exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children. In court, the judge burned one of the drawings ("depicting a very young girl dressed only above the waist") over a candle flame. The 21 days he had already spent in custody were taken into account, and he was sentenced to a further three days' imprisonment. While in prison, Schiele created a series of paintings depicting his jail cell. • Illustration — Self portrait In 1913, the Galerie Hans Goltz, Munich, mounted Schiele's first solo show. A solo exhibition of his work took place in Paris in 1914.

• Illustration — Edith Schiele in a Striped Dress, Seated, 1915 Leopold Museum In 1914, Schiele glimpsed the sisters Edith and Adéle Harms, who lived with their parents across the street from his studio in the Viennese district of Hietzing, 101 Hietzinger Hauptstraße. They were a middle-class family and Protestant by faith; their father was a master locksmith. In 1915, Schiele chose to marry the more socially acceptable Edith, but had apparently expected to continue his relationship with Wally. When he explained the situation to Wally, she left him immediately and never saw him again. This abandonment led him to paint Death and the Maiden, where Wally's portrait is based on a previous painting, but Schiele's is newly struck. In February 1915, Schiele wrote a note to his friend Arthur Roessler stating: "I intend to get married, advantageously. Not to Wally." Despite some opposition from the Harms family, Schiele and Edith were married on 17 June 1915, the anniversary of the wedding of Schiele's parents. • Illustration — Photograph of Egon Schiele, 1910s Although Schiele avoided conscription for almost a year, World War I now began to shape his life and work. Three days after his wedding, Schiele was ordered to report for active service in the army, where he was initially stationed in Prague. Edith came with him and stayed in a hotel in the city, while Egon lived in an exhibition hall with his fellow conscripts. They were allowed by Schiele's commanding officer to see each other occasionally. During the war, Schiele's paintings became larger and more detailed. His military service gave him limited time, and much of his output consisted of linear drawings of scenery and military officers. Around this time, Schiele also began experimenting with the themes of motherhood and family. His wife Edith was the model for most of his female figures, but during the war (due to circumstance) many of his sitters were male. From 1915, Schiele's female nudes became fuller in figure, and many were deliberately illustrated with a lifeless doll-like appearance. Despite his military service, Schiele was still exhibiting in Berlin. He also had successful shows in Zürich, Prague, and Dresden. His first duties consisted of guarding and escorting Russian prisoners. Because of his weak heart and his excellent handwriting, Schiele was eventually given a job as a clerk in a POW camp near the town of Mühlingen. There, he was allowed to draw and paint imprisoned Russian officers; his commander, Karl Moser (who assumed that Schiele was a painter and decorator when he first met him), even gave him a disused store room to use as a studio. Since Schiele was in charge of the food stores in the camp, he and Edith could enjoy food beyond rations. • Illustration — 1918 poster Vienna Secession Schiele did everything he could to get out of military service. In January 1917, he was transferred to a military supply depot in Vienna and given no particular responsibilities. He was again able to focus on his artistic career, and his output was prolific. His work reflected the maturity of an artist in full command of his talents. Schiele was invited to participate in the 49th Vienna Secession exhibition held in 1918. Schiele had fifty works accepted for this exhibition, and they were displayed in the main hall. He also designed a poster for the exhibition. The composition was reminiscent of the Last Supper, with a portrait of himself in the place of Jesus. The show was a triumphant success. As a result, prices for Schiele's drawings increased, and he received many portrait commissions.

In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic reached Vienna. Edith, who was six months pregnant, died from the disease on 28 October. Schiele, very sick and weak, was transferred from the couple's home to his in-laws' house. Due to fear of contagion, visitors would communicate with Schiele from afar by way of a mirror which was set up on the threshold of his room and the parlour. Among Schiele's last visitors were his mother Marie and sister Melanie. Schiele died three days after his wife. He was 28 years old. During the three days between their deaths, Schiele drew a few sketches of Edith.

Jane Kallir has described Schiele's work as grotesque, erotic, pornographic, or disturbing, with a focus on sex, death, and discovery. He focused on portraits of others as well as himself. In his later years, while he still worked often with nudes, they were done in a more realist fashion. From a young age, Schiele drew with "manic fluency". Art critic Martin Gayford wrote in The Spectator: Kallir and scholar Gerald Izenberg regard Schiele as fluid in sexuality and gender. Kallir says Schiele was "struggling with his own sexual feelings and gender norms" during a historical period of shifting gender expectations, the early women's movement, and criminalisation of homosexuality. Some critics in the 21st century read his artwork as queer.

Egon Schiele had among his admirers many Jewish art collectors whose collections were looted under the Nazis: in Germany from 1933, in Austria from the Anschluss of 1938, and in France from the German occupation of 1940. As a result, numerous restitution cases in the 21st century involve artworks by Schiele. Egon Schiele's Dead City, "Woman in Black Pinafore" (1911) and "Woman Hiding Her Face" (1912) were owned by Jewish cabaret artist and film star Fritz Grünbaum before the Nazis deported him to the Dachau concentration camp. Krumau (1916) was owned by Daisy Hellmann until it was seized by Nazis in 1942. She first made a restitution claim in 1948 but her heirs were not able to recover the Schiele until 2002. Austria's Nazi looting organisation, the Vugesta, had auctioned Krumau at the Dorotheum in Vienna on 24–27 February 1942, where the Sanct Lucas gallery bought it on behalf of Wolfgang Gurlitt. In 1953, the City of Linz acquired it for the Neue Galerie in Linz. The 1917 painting by Egon Schiele, Portrait of the Artist's Wife was owned by Karl Mayländer, a Jewish businessman in Vienna who was murdered in Auschwitz. Robin Lehman, the son of Robert Lehman, bought Portrait of the Artist's Wife (1917) in 1964 from Marlborough Gallery in London. Four Trees / Autumn Allée was owned by Josef Morgenstern who was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. • Illustration — Portrait of Wally, 1912 Leopold Museum The art gallery of the Jewish art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray, owner of the famous Portrait of Wally, was seized by the Nazis prior to his escaping to London. Wilted Sunflowers, which had been owned by Jewish art collector Karl Grunwald and seized by Nazis in Strasbourg, was discovered after a private collector took it to Christies for evaluation in 2005. In 2006, the Expressionist work was sold at auction for 17.2 million euros. Portrait of Wally, a 1912 portrait, was purchased by Rudolf Leopold in 1954 and became part of the collection of the Leopold Museum when it was established by the Austrian government, purchasing more than 5,000 pieces that Leopold had owned. After a 1997–1998 exhibit of Schiele's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the painting was seized by order of the New York County District Attorney and had been tied up in litigation by heirs of its former owner who claim that the painting was Nazi plunder and should be returned to them. The dispute was settled on 20 July 2010 and the picture subsequently purchased by the Leopold Museum for US$19 million. In 2013, the museum sold three drawings by Schiele for £14 million at Sotheby's London in order to settle the restitution claim over its 1914 Schiele painting Houses by the Sea. The most expensive, Liebespaar (Selbstdarstellung mit Wally) (1914/15), or Two lovers (Self Portrait With Wally), raised the world auction record for a work on paper by the artist to £7.88 million. On 21 June 2013 Auctionata in Berlin sold a watercolour from 1916, Reclining Woman, at an online auction for €1.827 million (US$2.418 million). This is a world record for the most expensive work of art ever sold at an online auction.

• Illustration — Self-portrait with striped shirt, 1910, Leopold Museum, Vienna • Illustration — Self-portrait, 1910, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid • Illustration — Self-portrait grimacing, 1910 • Illustration — Self-portrait with black clay pot, 1911 • Illustration — Self-portrait with lowered head, 1912 Leopold Museum, Vienna • Illustration — I shall endure for art and for the happiness of my lover. Self-portrait of Schiele in jail, 1912 • Illustration — Self-Portrait with Brown Background, 1912 • Illustration — Lovers – Self-Portrait with Wally, c. 1914 – 1915 • Illustration — Self-portrait, 1914 • Illustration — Self-portrait, 1915 • Illustration — Self-portrait depicting masturbation, 1911

• Illustration — Girl with black hair, 1910 • Illustration — Reclining nude, 1910 • Illustration — Nude with Red Garters, 1911 • Illustration — Semi-nude Reclining 1911 • Illustration — Walburga Neuzil in black stockings, 1913 • Illustration — Friendship, 1913 • Illustration — Seated female nude with elbows propped, 1914 • Illustration — Frederike Beer, 1914 • Illustration — Blonde girl in green stockings, 1914 • Illustration — Green Stockings, 1914 • Illustration — Two Women • Illustration — Mother with two children II, 1915 Leopold Museum • Illustration — Children • Illustration — Pair embracing, 1917 • Illustration — Reclining woman, 1917 Leopold Museum • Illustration — Kneeling Girl, Resting on Both Elbows 1917 Leopold Museum • Illustration — Seated woman with bent knees, 1917, National Gallery Prague • Illustration — Sitting girl, 1917 • Illustration — Nude, 1917 • Illustration — The Family, 1918, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna • Illustration — Dancer (Die Tänzerin), 1913

• Illustration — Die kleine Stadt III, 1912–1913, view of Krumau an der Moldau Leopold Museum, Vienna • Illustration — Dämmernde Stadt, 1913, Private collection • Illustration — Stein an der Donau II, 1913, Neue Galerie, New York • Illustration — The Bridge (Die Brücke), 1913, Private collection • Illustration — Houses on the River (Häuser am Fluss), 1914, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid • Illustration — House with Shingle Roof (Old House II), 1915 Leopold Museum, Vienna • Illustration — Old Mill (Alte Mühle), 1916 • Illustration — Four trees (Vier Bäume), 1917, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna • Illustration — Town among Greenery (The Old City III), 1917, Neue Galerie, New York • Illustration — Houses with Clothelines (Häuser mit Wäscheleinen oder Vorstadt)

Egon Schiele was recorded at birth as Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele. The authorities additionally record the headings Schiele, schiele egon, e. schiele and Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele. His recorded language was German. He married Edith Schiele.

Egon Schiele worked in painting and erotic art. His work is associated with Expressionism. He worked at Neulengbach, Vienna and Český Krumlov.

One work is recorded as notable: Seated Woman with Bent Knees. His recorded genres are portrait, figure, self-portrait, landscape and allegory.

The Leopold Museum, Vienna, houses perhaps Schiele's most important and complete collection of work, featuring over 200 works. The museum sold one of these, Houses With Colorful Laundry (Suburb II), for $40.1 million at Sotheby's in 2011. Other notable collections of Schiele's art include the Egon Schiele-Museum, Tulln, the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, and the Albertina Graphic Collection, both in Vienna. Viktor Fogarassy collected works by Schiele, including Dämmernde Stadt.