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***January 2003 *** |
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| Egon Schiele June 12, 1890 - October 31, 1918 |
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| Egon Schiele grew up in a lower-middle class family in Tulln, a small town near Vienna. His family lived on the second floor of a railway station, which explains Egon's early sketches of trains done from his bedroom window. He entered Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts in 1906, just one year after his father's death. His rebellious tendencies in school assured frequent conflict with his instructors, trouble in the turn-of-the-century Vienna artworld and a deep friendship with Gustav Klimt, then an established and rspected modernist artist. |
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After leaving the academy in1909, he began his career as an artist. His art career rose steadily and he began receiving commissions from wealthy patrons until rumors started to spread that the artist was using children and adolescents as models for his erotic drawings and paintings. He was charged with creating "pornographic" material and exposing these works to children and on April 13, 1910 was sent to prison while a hundred paintings were confiscated. He continued to paint and after being released started participating in exhibits throughout Europe. |
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By 1918, he was in his prime and at the peak of his artistic development and creativity. Then on February 6 of the same year his mentor Gustav Klimpt died of influenza. Later that same year his wife, who was six months pregnant, died on October 28. He painted her portrait on the day of her death and then, succumbed to the influenza epidemic himself three days later. He was only twenty-eight years old. |
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