Schiele
Price on request
SKU: SS-006296
Egon Schiele (1890‑1918) was a leading figure of Austrian Expressionism and one of the most striking portrait painters of the 20th century. A student of Gustav Klimt, he first explored the dazzling Art Nouveau style before developing a harsher, anarchic aesthetic marked by sharp lines, vivid colours and distorted forms. His provocative, sometimes pornographic, portraits and self‑portraits shocked Viennese society with anguished, erotic and confrontational poses—figures may collapse to the floor, expose their legs, glare at the viewer, or accentuate genital areas. Models appear alternately frail and sickly or strong and emotional. Contemporaries deemed Schiele’s work both ugly and morally objectionable; in 1912 he was briefly jailed for the alleged indecency of his paintings. Though his art was poorly preserved after his death and largely forgotten, it later inspired generations of artists from Günter Brus and Francis Bacon to Tracey Emin. Today the once‑misunderstood pieces attract great interest in the international art market. This book presents his brief yet powerful career and examines how his revolutionary treatment of the human figure and intense, sometimes angry, expression contributed to the development of modern art. Published by TASCHEN. Release: January 2020. Language: English. Hardcover edition, 96 pages. ISBN 9783836504423.