Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterise Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.
Paintings by Egon Schiele
Dead City III (1911)
Dead City III (German: Tote Stadt III) is an oil on wood expressionist painting by Egon Schiele from 1911. It was owned by the Viennese cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum before he was murdered by Nazis and has been the object of high-profile disputes and court battles. Suspected by New York's District Attorney of having been looted by the Nazis, Dead City III was temporarily confiscated from the Austrian art collector Rudolf Leopold after he loaned it to a New York museum in 1998. The ownership history of the painting has been the object of high-profile court cases in which two very different versions of the painting's journey from the Jewish Holocaust victim to the Austrian art collector collide.
Dead City III is a small painting on wood with the dimensions 37.3 cm × 29.8 cm (14.7 in × 11.7 in). It is a variation of the repeated executed motif by the artist of a view of the Bohemian town of Český Krumlov, known in German as Krumau, as seen from the castle hill. It is the birthplace of Schiele's mother, to where the painter repeatedly withdrew from Viennese city life. The picture shows a group of houses, enclosed on three sides by a deep blue ring symbolizing the Vltava, so that the village seems isolated and like floating in an indefinable, abstract space. The painting shows the artist's development, using representations of nature not only as expressions for moods and sensations, but as carriers of deep content. The city becomes a still life in the best sense of a nature morte, "emerging from the dark in a mysterious and visionary manner".
Portrait of Wally (1912)
Portrait of Wally is a 1912 oil painting by Austrian painter Egon Schiele of Walburga "Wally" Neuzil, a woman whom he met in 1911 when he was 21 and she was 17. She became his lover and model for several years, depicted in a number of Schiele's most striking paintings. The painting was obtained by Rudolf Leopold in 1954 and became part of the collection of the Leopold Museum when it was established by the Austrian government, purchasing 5,000 pieces that Leopold had owned. Near the end of a 1997–1998 exhibit of Schiele's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the painting's ownership (provenance) history was revealed in an article published in The New York Times. After the publication, the heirs of Lea Bondi Jaray, to whom the work had belonged before World War II, contacted the New York County District Attorney who issued a subpoena forbidding its return to Austria. The work was tied up in litigation for years by Bondi's heirs, who claimed that the painting was Nazi plunder and should have been returned to them.
In July 2010, the Leopold Museum agreed to pay $19 million to Bondi's heirs under an agreement that would address all outstanding claims on the painting.
Death and the Maiden (Schiele) (1915)
Death and the Maiden is an oil on canvas painting by the Austrian painter Egon Schiele from 1915. It is exhibited in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, in Vienna. Schiele initially named the large picture measuring 150 by 180 centimeters as Man and Girl and also Entwined People.
The painting was created when the painter, after marrying Edith Harms, was drafted into military service in the First World War. The presence of death, but also the connection between death and eros in several of his works from this period, is associated with this event. In this painting he uses a Renaissance motif, the contrast between death and the maiden. In this painting, the woman clutching the shape of death as her lover, in a monk's robe, loses its horror. Upon its unveiling, the work drew controversy for its perceived morbidity and erotic undertones, yet it has since come to be regarded as one of Schiele’s most significant paintings, reflecting his enduring preoccupation with mortality and the human psyche. There are some similarities with fellow Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka painting The Bride of the Wind (1914).
The Family (Schiele) (1918)
The Family (in German, "Die Familie") was one of the last oil paintings made by Austrian painter Egon Schiele before he died of Spanish flu on 31 October 1918. The work measures 152.5 cm × 162.5 cm (60.0 in × 64.0 in) and is held by the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna.
The painting was initially entitled Crouching Couple (German: "Kauerndes Menschenpaar") and depicted the artist and a woman, both squatting naked with knees raised. The woman's skin is a lighter pink tone, but the man a darker bronze against the yet darker background. The figures are arranged in a solid pyramidal composition, with the woman on the floor gazing into space to her left with her arms by her sides. She is resting between the legs of the man, who is slightly elevated on a bed or couch, calmly regarding the viewer, with his left arm bent over and resting on his left knee and his right hand across his heart raised to his left collar.
Portrait of Edith (the artist's wife) (1915)
Portrait of Edith (the artist's wife) is a painting by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele. The sitter is Edith Harms, "a middle-class woman from a well established family." It was painted in 1915, during a period of leave for Schiele from the First World War.
Schiele's paintings are renowned for their portrayals of stark nudity, but the portrait of his wife is in contrast to this. Her long, colourful dress covers her body and creates a much more modest image.
Dämmernde Stadt
Dämmernde Stadt (City in Twilight) is an oil painting by Egon Schiele, a townscape of Krumau (today: Český Krumlov), completed in 1913. It also known as Die kleine Stadt II (The small town). It was owned until 1930 by Elsa Koditschek, a Jew who survived the Holocaust hidden in Vienna. The painting was taken from her during the Nazi regime. It was auctioned in 1950 at the Dorotheum in Vienna, and bought by a private collector. In 2018, it was auctioned in New York in an act of voluntary restitution, and the proceeds were shared by the descendants of both owners.
Townscapes formed a large part of Schiele's work, who is known for nudes and self-portraits. He made them especially during his time in Krumau (today: Český Krumlov), where his mother Marie was born. The picturesque historic town (Altstadt) on both banks of the Vltava River now a UNESCO world heritage site. Schiele lived there with his muse and later partner Wally Neuzil in May to December 1910, and in May and June 1911. He had to leave because of his relationship to Wally, and due to reports about painting young nude models. He returned for short visits, then staying in guest houses. He completed, signed and dated Dämmernde Stadt in 1913. It is also known as Die kleine Stadt II and Die kleine Stadt III. The painting was shown at exhibitions the same year, in Budapest in March, and at two exhibitions in Munich.
The Port of Trieste (1907)
Hafen von Triest, oil and pencil on card, 25 x 18 cm
Houses on the River (The Old Town) (1914)
The scene represented Krumau, a small Bohemian village on the banks of the river Moldava. For a long time it was wrongly identified as an urban view of Wachau in Lower-Austria.[1] ↑ Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Crucifixion with Darkened Sun (1907)
crucifixion of Jesus
Self-Portrait with Bare Shoulder (1912)
Self portrait with raised nacked shoulderlabel QS:Len,"Self portrait with raised nacked shoulder"label QS:Lde,"Selbstbildnis mit hochgezogener nackter Schulter"
Revelation (1911)
Révélation. Egon Schiele 1911. Leopold Museum, Vienne