Schiele

Egon Schiele 1890-1918 – along with Oskar Kokoschka – is the painter who had the most long-lasting influence on the Vienna art scene after the great era of Klimt came to a close. After a short flirtation with Klimts style, Schiele soon questioned the aesthetic orientation to the beautiful surface of the Viennese Art Nouveau with his rough and not easily accessible paintings. Many contemporaries found Schieles expressive nudes and self-portraits, with their strange movements and morbid colours, to be ugly and even morally objectionable-criticism which culminated in criminalizing the painter as obscene and resulted in 1912 in an indictment and short jail sentence. However, not even his harshest critics could dispute the artist’s extraordinary drawing talent.