Egon Schiele

<p>After <strong>Egon Schiele</strong> (1890–1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model <strong>Gustav Klimt</strong>, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the <strong>annals of modernity</strong> before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a <strong>passionate provocateur</strong>, this didn’t prove to be too big a challenge.<br /><br /> His <strong>haggard, overstretched figures</strong>, <strong>extreme depiction of sexuality</strong> and <strong>self-portraits,</strong> in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions <strong>bordering between brilliance and madness</strong>, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt’s hymns of love, sexuality and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele’s work spoke of a <strong>brutal honesty</strong>, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.<br /><br /> Although his works were later defamed as “degenerate” and for a time were almost forgotten altogether, they <strong>influenced generations of artists</strong>—from <strong>Günter Brus</strong> and <strong>Francis Bacon</strong> to <strong>Tracey Emin</strong>. Today, his then misunderstood oeuvre continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market.<br /><br /> This monograph features <strong>the paintings</strong> and<strong> drawings</strong> that <strong>retrace the fertile last decade of Schiele’s life</strong>. These works are accompanied by essays introducing his life and oeuvre, situating the Austrian master in the context of European Expressionism and charting his extraordinary legacy.</p>