Egon Schiele 1890-1918

At the age of 15, he studied at Kunstgewerbeschule (the School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna, where Gustav Klimt once hade been himself a student.

Invited by Klimt himself, Schiele had exhibit some of his work at the 1909 Vienna Kunstschau, where he encountered the work of Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop, and Vincent van Gogh. He was particulaly interested in the explicit forms of human nature.

 

 

 

Schieler later escaped Vienna, accompanied by a former nude model called Wally, allegedly mistress of Klimt, to find comfort in Krumau (Cesky Krumlov)

 

 

 

Cesky Krumlov

 

Cesky Krumlov is a beautiful Unesco world heritage city, in South Bohemia, the Czech Republic.

Nowadays Cesky Krumlov holds home to a museum in honor of the artist. However, Schiele and his mistress were banned by residents from the city, who dissaproved his lifestyle as a teen model recruiter.

Cesky 2005

 

 

 

Again a fugtive, Schiele opens a studio in Neulengbach, 35 km west of Vienna, that becomes a refuge for orphan children in the city. Again the painter’s irreverent life style arouse the populations hate and Schiele was arrested at his home, under the charges of pedophaelia (for seducing a young girl bellow the age of consent).

 

 

 

 

the police seized more than a hundred drawings which they considered pornographic. Schiele was imprisoned while awaiting his trial. The charges were droped but accusations of posession of explicit material still held up. The judge in court even burnt one of Shiele’s drawings over a candle light.

 

 

In 1915 Schiele got married to her neighbor across the street from his studio in the Viennese suburb of Hietzing, 101 Hietzinger Hauptstrasse. He still expected to maintain an off marriage relationship with his sister in law. In 1915, Schiele wrote a note to his friend Arthur Roessler stating: “I intend to get married, advantageously, perhaps not to Wally.”

Schiele was drafted to war, stationed in Prague, but his artistic talent earned him the respect of his superiors and allowed him to stay away from the front of battle, enabling him to continue painting while guarding russian prisoners.

He was invited to be part in the Secession’s 49th exhibition, held in Vienna in 1918. Schiele saw fifty of his works being accepted for this exhibition, and they were displayed in the main hall. He also designed the front poster for the exhibition, which was reminiscent of the Last Supper, with a portrait of himself in the place of Christ. The show was a tremendous success, and as a result, prices for Schiele’s drawings increased and he received many portrait commissions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

in 1918, his wife perished to the spanish flu epidemic that chyphered around 20 thousand lifes in Europe. She was 6 month pregnant.

Schiele died only three days after his wife and son, at the age of 28.

 

 

 

 

Mladeze 13

Home Sweet Home

Prague 6: Drinopol.  My place! May 2005 to March 2006.

I remember snatching a Martini poster from “Hunny Bunny” at Prague 4 (Vysehrad), use it to decorate my bedroom.

In the cold winter days my clothes hanging up to dry outside would freeze to stone. I d wash them almost 40 minutes away, at a backpackers laundromat, after riding one tram and one subway, located down at Namesti Miru.

The neighbourhood supermarket sold monte velho wine, from my home land, Portugal, which I bought once to pay a visit to Chris, my old cockney colleague from Honeywell, living next to Saska Arena.

I used to jogg around the neighbourhood Hospital, which i later found out was where my beautifull colleague Dasa’s Husband worked as an orthopeadic MD, only on the day i took my brother, visiting me, in after he broke his arm playing soccer on our traditional games on thursdays.

My tv set only played 2 channells, and the first time I tuned in was on christmas day 2005, almost 7 months after my arrival.

My german flatmate cooked very thin chinese rice noodles on the stove. He provided one cd playing stereo from his place back in Dusseldorf that i tuned to play the BBC radio.

Other references on the main street included smokey hospodas selling cheap beer night in, a good restaurant selling a top 1 gulash, served in a bread carved shaped like a bowl, the famous red tram to Bila Hora with its old fashioned bell ringer.

It was an amazing experience, and I d never trade this stalinist kommunalka flat for any other place elsewhere.

My first day, I remember `stalking` my flatmate to the University to watch an ice hockey international game on plasma against Canada for the world cup. My last day I left the house stung by a rough farewell party from my friends the previous night, draging myself to catch the first taxi to the airport, with a black eye from a drinking fight, a couple of stiches, cell phone battery dead, unable to catch any transportation to the airport while my time was running out and so were my last minutes in Czech..