Austrian
expressionist
artist
Egon Leo Adolf Schiele, b. June 12, 1890,
d. Oct. 31, 1918, was at odds with art critics and society for most of his
brief life.
Even more than
Gustav Klimt,
Schiele made eroticism one of his major
themes and was briefly imprisoned for obscenity in 1912. His treatment of
the nude figure suggests a lonely, tormented spirit haunted rather than
fulfilled by sexuality. At first strongly influenced by Klimt, whom he met
in 1907, Schiele soon achieved an independent anticlassical style wherein his
jagged lines arose more from psychological and spiritual feeling than from
aesthetic considerations. He painted a number of outstanding portraits, such
as that of his father-in-law,
Johann Harms (1916; Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York City), and a series of unflinching and disquieting
self-portraits. Late works such as
The Family (1918; Oesterreichische
Galerie, Vienna) reveal a newfound sense of security.