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Today is the birthday of Egon Schiele (Tulln an der Donau, Austro-Hungarian Empire; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918 Vienna); painter.  A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century.  His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many self-portraits the artist produced, including naked self-portraits.  The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele’s paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.In 1911, Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Walburga (Wally) Neuzil, who lived with him in Vienna and served as a model for some of his most striking paintings.  Very little is known of her, except that she had previously modelled for Gustav Klimt and might have been one of his mistresses.  Schiele and Wally went to the small town of Český Krumlov (Krumau) in southern Bohemia.  Krumau was the birthplace of Schiele’s mother; today it is the site of a museum dedicated to Schiele.  Despite Schiele’s family connections in Krumau, he and his lover were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their lifestyle, including his alleged employment of the town’s teenage girls as models.  In 1914, Schiele glimpsed the sisters Edith and Adéle Harms, who lived with their parents across the street from his studio in the Viennese suburb of Hietzing, 101 Hietzinger Hauptstrasse.  In 1915, Schiele chose to marry the more socially acceptable Edith, but had apparently expected to maintain a relationship with Wally.  However, when he explained the situation to Wally, she left him immediately and never saw him again.  This abandonment led him to paint Death and the Maiden, where Wally’s portrait is based on a previous pairing, but Schiele’s is newly struck. Despite some opposition from the Harms family, Schiele and Edith were married on 17 June 1915, the anniversary of the wedding of Schiele’s parents.  In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic that claimed more than 20,000,000 lives in Europe reached Vienna.  Edith, who was six months pregnant, succumbed to the disease on 28 October.  Schiele died only three days after his wife.  He was 28 years old.  During the three days between their deaths, Schiele drew a few sketches of Edith.

Gallery

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  _{Self portrait, 1910}

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  _{Self portrait grimacing, 1910}

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  _{Self portrait with black clay pot, 1911}

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  _{Self-portrait with his head down, (1912)}

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  _{I shall endure for art and for the happiness of my lover. Self-portrait of Schiele in jail, 1912}

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  _{Lovers – Self-Portrait With Wally, c. 1914 – 1915}

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  _{Self portrait, 1914}

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  _{Self portrait, 1915}

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  _{Girl with black hair 1910}

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  _{Reclining nude, 1910}

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  _{Nude with Red Garters, 1911}

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  _{Semi-nude Reclining 1911}

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  _{Valerie Neuzil in black stockings, 1913}

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  _{Friendship, 1913}

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  _{Seated female nude with elbows propped, 1914.}

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  _{Frederike Beer, 1914}

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  _{Blonde girl in green stockings, 1914}

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  _{Green Stockings, 1914}

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  _{Two Women}

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  _{Mother with two children II – 1915}

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  _Children

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  _{Pair embracing, 1917}

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  _{Woman (1917).}

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  _{Kneeling Girl, Resting on Both Elbows 1917}

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  _{Seated woman with bent knee, 1917}

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  _{Sitting girl, 1917}

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  _{Nude 1917}

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  _{The Family, 1918}

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  Die kleine Stadt II, 1912–1913. View of Krumau an der Moldau

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  Four trees (Vier Bäume), 1917

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  Stein an der Donau II, 1913

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  The Bridge (Die Brücke), 1913

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  Old Mill (Alte Mühle), 1916

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  House with Shingles, 1915