Egon Schiele [Broché]

Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was a passionate man--for life, for death, and most notably, for sex. Through the mediums of drawing and painting he was able to indulge himself fully in these obsessions. Schiele's free artistic spirit shook the cultural constraints of his day and gave rise to his famous nude self-portraits and paintings of female nudes. Despite criticism throughout his brief career, Schiele emerged as a major figure in the history of modern art and the development of the Expressionist movement.

EGON SCHIELE, by art historian and curator Simon Wilson, is a beautifully illustrated monograph on the artist and his work. This affordable book documents the breadth of Schiele's career within his short 28-year lifespan, from erotic nudes to peaceful landscapes, with a series of 78 illustrations and accompanying text that retain the power to shock and endear audiences one hundred years later.

Schiele's notorious nude figures reflect the context of his era and how he was viewed--scandalous. He was living in a Freudian-influenced Vienna, a time when sex and human reality intertwined and the taboo topic of eroticism became more of a public, scientific discussion. His artistic approach reflects this societal shift and Schiele's vision gave expression to powerful feelings and anguished honesty, as seen in the controversial paintings of women on women in Two Girls Lying Entwined and in erotic self-portraits like Eros. And even when dogged by critics and plagued by accusations of pornography, once even thrown in jail for forcefully employing young girls as models, Schiele continued to approach his vocation as an artist with uncompromising intensity.

In this recently revised book, Wilson examines Schiele's unique vision as an artist, as well as his less controversial work as a landscape and portrait painter. EGON SCHIELE puts his life and work in the context of this time, demonstrating how the painter's style of expression gave form to the anxieties and insecurities that beset Western culture at the turn of the century. Today, his emotional, powerful and expressive images reveal the way Schiele defied convention, as well as illuminate his bold career based on the relationship between humanity, sex and life--a career that continues to elicit response from worldwide audiences to this day.

Egon Schiele (b. 1890, Tullin, Austria; d. 1918 Vienna) is now recognized as a major figure in the development of the Expressionist movement. In 1906, he enrolled in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, but felt frustrated with the school's conservatism. He left the Akademie in 1909 to found Neukunstgruppe with several other students. In 1907, he befriended fellow artist Gustav Klimt, as well as several collectors who encouraged his work. In 1911, Schiele left Vienna and the following year he was jailed for 24 days on account of "immortality and seduction" for hanging nude portraits in his home visible to a passerby and employing young girls as models. He died at the young age of 28 on Halloween night in 1918, the victim of influenza.

Author Details

Simon Wilson is an art historian and former curator of the Tate Gallery in London.