Egon Schiele: Life and Work

Painter Egon Schiele enjoyed an astonishing range of accomplishments before his premature death at age 28, from being accepted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts at 16 to being deemed""the foremost painter of his era"" a mere 11 years later. In between, Schiele's talent and reputation flourished despite his intermittent poverty, conscription into the Austrian army, and imprisonment for exposing minors to pornography. Kallir, co-director of the esteemed Galerie St. Etienne, plunges into the artist's biography, never sensationalizing, never sidestepping, but deftly twining Schiele's artistic development together with his turbulent personal life and the shifting political landscape of Habsburg Austria. Whether exploring the influences of Oskar Kokoschka and Gustav Klimt, speculating on the precocious artist's psychological maturity, or scrutinizing Schiele's""glaring negative space"" and""gyrations of the paint,"" Kallir offers lively, candid prose that never succumbs to jargon. Many of the lavish reproductions are instantly recognizable as vintage Schiele--the frank depictions of pubescent sexuality, the stark, attenuated self-portraits, the later society portraits, each marked by a distinctly virtuoso line. But unexpected treasures abound, too--Kallir's catalogue raisonnee includes the painter's early efforts in the Viennese Secession style as well as often overlooked vibrant landscapes and still lifes. Kallir's even-handed tone provides the perfect textual complement for a catalogue teeming with Schiele's raw expressionism and is a precious volume for any student or scholar of 20th-century art. 201 illustrations, 94 in full color.