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.