Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Twisted brilliance
The 1908/09-1918 catalogue of Egon Schiele, as never seen before
Over the course of his short life, Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890 1918) blazed a turbulent Expressionist trail. A child prodigy, young rebel, and chronic provocateur, he caused uproar among the establishment with his contorted lines, distorted bodies, and explicit eroticism and continues to startle to this day with his unflinching images of himself and his nude subjects.
In this expansive XXL-format book, we survey the complete catalogue of Schiele paintings from his most innovative and prolific decade between 1908/09 and 1919. The 221 featured works reveal how the artist reveled in stylistic freedom and shock, abandoning classical figuration for a distorted and exaggerated physicality that rendered emotional and sexual truth. His subjects are elongated, angular, and twisted. With protruding ribs, contorted limbs, and sickly skin, the body becomes a locus of anguish. The only reprieve is the promise of sex. Like no other early 20th-century artist, Schiele laid genitalia bare, bringing some of the most candid renderings of the vagina in Western art history, as well as scenes of masturbation and lesbian sex.
These startling works are presented alongside biographical details, expert insights, as well as Schiele s own writings and poems, offering intimate access to the ideas behind his work and his extraordinary legacy through countless 20th-century masters, from Francis Bacon and Otto Muehl to Julian Schnabel, David Bowie, and Tracey Emin."
Synopsis
After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn't prove to be too big a challenge.
His haggard, overstretched figures, drastic depiction of sexuality, and self-portraits in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt's hymns of love, sexuality, and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele's work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.
Although his works were later defamed as "degenerate" and for a time were almost forgotten altogether, they influenced generations of artists - from G nter Brus and Francis Bacon to Tracey Emin. Today, his then-misunderstood oeuvre continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market.
Presented in a voluminous format that captures all of the intensity and emotional truth of his work, Egon Schiele. All paintings from 1909-1918 features 221 paintings and 146 drawings that retrace the fertile last decade of Schiele's life. With many pieces newly photographed for this edition, these works are paired with excerpts from his countless writings and poems, as well as essays introducing his life and oeuvre, to situate the Austrian master in the context of European Expressionism and trace his extraordinary legacy.
Synopsis
After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn't prove to be too big a challenge.
His haggard, overstretched figures, drastic depiction of sexuality, and self-portraits in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt's hymns of love, sexuality, and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele's work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.
Although his works were later defamed as "degenerate" and for a time were almost forgotten altogether, they influenced generations of artists - from Francis Bacon and G nter Brus to Tracey Emin. Today, his then-misunderstood oeuvre continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market.
Presented in a voluminous format that captures all of the intensity and emotional truth of his work, Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909-1918 features 221 paintings and 146 drawings that retrace the fertile last decade of Schiele's life. With many pieces newly photographed for this edition, these works are paired with excerpts from his countless writings and poems, as well as essays introducing his life and oeuvre, to situate the Austrian master in the context of European Expressionism and trace his extraordinary legacy.