Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter and draughtsman, born in Tulln an der Donau. He entered the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1906 and left in 1909 to found the Neukunstgruppe with fellow students. Gustav Klimt became an early mentor, buying his drawings and introducing him to patrons. Schiele is known for intense self-portraits, twisted bodies and a taut, nervous line, as in Self-Portrait with Physalis (1912), Portrait of Wally (1912) and Four Trees (1917). In 1912 he was arrested in Neulengbach and convicted of displaying erotic drawings where children could see them, and served a short sentence. His first solo show took place in Munich in 1913. He married Edith Harms in June 1915 and was called up to the army during the First World War. The 1918 Vienna Secession exhibition brought him real success. Edith died of Spanish flu on 28 October 1918, and Schiele died three days later in Vienna, aged 28.