Egon Schiele (1890-1918, Austria) was a painter and protégé of Gustav Klimt from whom he was highly influenced. Schiele’s paintings and drawings are characterized by their fragile lines, anaemic yet wonderfully precise, which depict their subjects in faint sickly colors, as if they, and the entire world, are on the brink of extinction. Schiele’s many works attend to nakedness and expose the body in all its malady and humanity thus presenting a stark opposition to the Vienna’s culture of shame and concealment. Many of his portraits are either self-portraits or portraits of friends and acquaintances. His relation with Klimt helped him exhibit his work during his lifetime, but his promising career was halted with his untimely death at 28 from Spanish flu. His works are still considered ground-breaking and are on show in leading international art collections.
Egon Schiele, Portrait of Franz Hauer (recto); striding youth bent (verso), 1914, Pencil on paper
Egon Schile, Stehendes Madchen mit durchsichtigem Kleid, 1910, Watercolour, charcoal and pencil on simili Japan paper