Egon schiele brief biography examples

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The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page.

That same year, Schiele lived briefly in his mother's hometown of Krumau in Southern Bohemia, where his practice of having young children visit his studio attracted disapproval from the local townspeople.

The following year was a crucial one for Schiele, both personally and artistically. His frequent use of a bird's-eye perspective in his landscapes calls to mind one of the most radical elements of his portraiture: his tendency to depict his sitters from above.

This stylistic shift emerged most significantly in a series of nudes done during the early months of the year: females (often the artist’s favorite sister, Gerti) cowed by the discovery of their emergent sexuality, and males reveling in the force of a raging libido.

Schiele’s professional prospects prospered apace in 1910.

Inspired by his wartime travels, Schiele produced a number of land- and cityscapes around this time, devoid of the artist's usual exaggerated contours.

By 1917, Schiele was back in Vienna and hard at work. While he continued to deal with nudes in his later years, he did so in a more realistic manner.

Seated Woman with Bent Knees (Adele Herms) (1917) by Egon Schiele; Egon Schiele, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Schiele developed his particular style early on, according to art expert Martin Gayford.

Schiele’s lifestyle infuriated the town’s residents, and he was arrested in April 1912 for courting a girl of 13, who was under the consenting age of 14 at the time. The 21 days he had previously spent in detention were considered, and he was condemned to three further days in prison. Or maybe you would like to buy a volume of his works as a table-top gift for Christmas.

In the portraits executed toward the second half of the year, one sees for the first time the influence of his compatriot Oskar Kokoschka. It is rumored that he had amorous feelings for his younger sister Gerti, and his father, who was fully aware of Egon’s behavior, was once obliged to break down the door of a closed room where the two were located to see what they were up to, only to find that they were busy developing film.

Schiele’s father died of syphilis when he was 14 years old, and he became a ward of Leopold Czihaczek, his uncle, who was also a railway officer.

This canvas contains other characteristic elements of Schiele's idiom as well, most notably, his use of boldly outlined and sharp contours. As close as the two men were, and for all their similarities, Schiele spent much of his career seeking to break free of Klimt's influence. Schiele’s aesthetic affected both Expressionist contemporaries such as Oskar Kokoschka and Neo-Expressionist successors such as Julian Schnabel, Francis Bacon, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Here are a few examples of his work.

• Girl With Black Hair (1910)
• Reclining Nude (1910)
• Frederike Beer (1914)
• The Green Stockings (1917)
• Woman (1917)
• Seated with a Bent Knee (1917)

The Green Stockings (1917) by Egon Schiele; Egon Schiele, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Recommended Reading

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Though he hoped to continue his relationship with Wally Neuzil, she left him upon news of his engagement, a loss powerfully expressed in Death and the Maiden (1915).

Schiele was eventually conscripted into military service four days after his marriage. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her.

If the content of Schiele's work is any indication, it appears that the mentor and mentee shared an insatiable appetite for women.

Mature Period

Shortly after forming the Neuekunstgruppe, Schiele began enjoying modest success as a painter and draughtsman, and in 1911 he had his first solo exhibition, at Vienna's Galerie Miethke, where the artist's increasing penchant for self-portraiture and sexualized—often approaching lewd—studies of young women were on display.

He was instrumental in formulating the character of early-20^th-century Expressionism, characterized by the use of irregular contours, an often somber palette, and frequently dark symbolism. Schiele, unlike many other modernists in other nations, did not have the backing of a community of like-minded peers.

He achieved his final formal solutions primarily on his own, drawing creative fuel from an eclectic scattering of foreign and home inspirations.