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ONLINECOLLECTION

The Small Town III, 1913

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil, soft pencil on canvas
89.9×90 cm

Artists

  • Egon Schiele

    (Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
Egon Schiele (1890–1918) felt a greater association with the Southern Bohemian town of Český Krumlov/Krumau, his mother’s birthplace, than with any other town he visited; he repeatedly made it the subject of his paintings. After some of his earliest, small-scale panel paintings, he revisited the medieval town on a bend in the Vltava river again and again, for instance in Dead City III (City on the Blue River III), 1911, or Crescent of Houses II (Island Town), 1915. The painting presented here was not created on location, however, but rather composed from memory in a free interpretation of the local topography. The individual, partially identifiable buildings are lined up on the banks of the dark water surfaces in such a way as to enhance the decorative character of the square picture plane with its horizontally grouped motifs. Most probably because of his precarious financial situation in the second half of 1912, Schiele was forced to use a canvas sown together from two pieces, with the seam running approximately along the bank of the Vltava.

Object data

Artist/author
  • Egon Schiele
Title
The Small Town III
Date
1913
Art movement
Expressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil, soft pencil on canvas
Dimensions
89.9×90 cm
Signature
Signed and dated center right: EGON SCHIELE 1913
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 482
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Hundertwasser - Schiele. Imagine Tomorrow, hrsg. von Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Köln 2020 (Leopold Museum, Wien, 21.02.2020-31.08.2020).
  • Rudolf Leopold: Egon Schiele. Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, hrsg. von Elisabeth Leopold, München 2020.
  • Tobias Natter: Egon Schiele, Sämtliche Gemälde 1909-1918, Köln 2017.
  • Egon Schiele Landschaften, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold, München u.a. 2004 (Ausst. Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 17.09.2004-31.01.2005).
  • Jane Kallir: Egon Schiele - The complete works. Expanded edition including a biography and a catalogue raisonné, New York 1998.
  • Otto Kallir: Egon Schiele. Oeuvre Catalogue of the Paintings, New York 1966.
  • Otto Nirenstein: Egon Schiele. Persönlichkeit und Werk, Berlin 1930.
Catalogue raisonne
  • J. Kallir 1990/1998: P261
  • Leopold 1972/2020: 227
  • Natter 2017: 131
  • O. Kallir 1966: 191
  • O. Kallir (Nirenstein) 1930: XXVIII
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Dipl. Ing. Hubert Jung, Wien (1913-1951);
Galerie Würthle, Wien (o.D.);
Viktor Fogarassy, Graz (vor 1957-1969); (1)
Galerie Würthle, Wien (1980); (2)
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (vor 1985-1994); (3)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994)

  1. Sonja Niederacher, Egon Schiele. „Die kleine Stadt“ II, auch „Kleine Stadt“ III, Dossier vom 16.01.2012, S. 5f.; Ergänzung zum Dossier vom 28.06.2019.
  2. Galerie Würthle, Katalog zu „60 Jahre Galerie Würthle. 60 Jahre moderne Kunst in Österreich“, Wien 1980
  3. Künstlerhaus Wien, Katalog zu „Traum und Wirklichkeit: Wien 1870-1930“, Wien 1985, S. 510, Nr. 15/8/13.

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