Egon Schiele (in Super upright format)

Egon Schiele born June 12, 1890 in Tulln an der Donau - died 31.10.1918 in Hietzing near Vienna

The Austrian painter Egon Schiele was the most important representative of early Viennese Expressionism after the turn of the millennium. After beginning his studies at the Vienna Academy of Arts (1906), he continued his education autodidactically. Gustav Klimt quickly became aware of the highly talented artist, who was about 30 years his junior, and promoted him intensively. Based on Schiele's knowledge of East Asian art and also under the influence of Ferdinand Hodler, impressive ornamental portraits were created. With his own aggressive and expressive forms, Schiele created an image of man that testified to the inner turmoil of the time at that time. Schiele also liked more and more in the role of the "Bürgerschreck". Due to the spread of immoral drawings, there were first problems with the judiciary.

Schiele's painting style developed further around 1914. He now preferred gloomy pale colors, but remained with the ecstatic and distorted attitudes of his models in his paintings and drawings. In the same year, Schiele had great success with this at an exhibition of the artist group "Der Blaue Reiter" in Munich. In 1915 Egon Schiele married the artist Edith Harms. After a short military service (1916) "without weapons" in his last creative period his painting style softened again, the nervous lines largely disappeared and the overall picture calmed down. In 1918 Schiele had in the special show of the "Vienna Secession" a last great artistic and material Success. Requests for portaitan piled up. Three days after the death of his wife, Egon Schiele also died as a result of the "Spanish flu". He was only 28 years old. His oeuvre comprises 245 paintings and approx. 2000 drawings and gouaches.

Text © Jürgen Banse, 2014