Egon Schiele

Throughout his life, which was cut short by the Spanish Influenza, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) created an oeuvre that was both symptomatic and ground-breaking for his time. After founding the artists’ association Neukunstgruppe in the summer of 1909, he made sensational appearances on the art scene, for which he was celebrated as well as criticized, and became the leader of a generation of young, ambitious artists. From the beginning, his art production focused on the reflection of his own, fragile identity which manifested itself in countless self-depictions as well as, metaphorically, in his land- and cityscapes. In his works and letters, Schiele cast himself in the role of a prophet and visionary, someone who was capable of experiencing an intense feeling of reality and of seeing the truth. He linked corporeality and sexuality with existential questions, and thus expressed the widely discussed crisis of the individual in Vienna around 1900.
Comprising 43 paintings from all the periods of the artist’s oeuvre, more than 200 watercolors, drawings and prints, as well as numerous autographs and photographs, the Leopold Museum is home to the world’s largest and most eminent collection of works by this outstanding protagonist of Austrian Expressionism.