Egon Schiele, 1914 (Print 1923)

In this photograph, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) is looking into the camera with raised eyebrows and a slightly lowered head. The Vienna-born painter, poet and photographer Anton Josef Trčka (1893–1940), who from 1911 to 1914 studied at the Graphic Teaching and Research Institute in Vienna, took the portrait in 1914. During the same session, he created a small series of staged portraits. In some of them, Schiele posed with his characteristic exalted hand gestures: Egon Schiele with Pursed Lips; Egon Schiele with Interlocking Fingers and Lowered Gaze; Egon Schiele, Posing. With these shots, Trčka, who signed his photographs using the pseudonym Antios, ventured far beyond traditional portrait photography. He further photographed a host of eminent Viennese personalities, for instance Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) and Peter Altenberg (1859–1919). This print was made, signed and inscribed with the name of the portrayed in 1923. Trčka’s unconventional portrait depictions are considered extensions of Schiele’s self-portraits.

MA, 2023