Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele is an Austrian Expressionist painter and draftsman, major figure of Viennese modern art whose bold and provocative work explores sexuality, death, and the human condition with unprecedented raw intensity. Protégé then rival of Gustav Klimt, he develops a radical graphic style characterized by angular and emaciated bodies, expressive contortions, and a nervous line that captures vulnerability and eroticism with brutal frankness. His obsessional self-portraits and tortured nudes - often controversial and censored during his lifetime - reveal profound psychological introspection and a fascination with the body as reflection of the tormented soul. Dying prematurely at age 28 from the Spanish flu in 1918, just days after his wife Edith, he leaves a dazzling body of work of more than 3000 drawings and watercolors that revolutionizes the representation of the body and lastingly influences Expressionism and modern figurative art.