Egon Schiele with Interlocking Fingers and Lowered Gaze, 1914

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) did not limit his self-stagings with highly expressive gestures and facial expressions to his diverse self-portraits but also showed off his distinctive style of physical expression in photographs. Anton Josef Trčka (1893–1940), who was also known under his pseudonym “Antios”, took a series of portrait photographs of his fellow artist in 1914, which are all characterized by expressive facial expressions and gestures. These photographs are closely linked to Schiele’s painterly and graphic oeuvre; they, too, are experiments of an artistically exaggerated self-expression. Like in many of Schiele’s own works, the artist’s hands also play a central role in this photograph. With his lowered head, furrowed forehead and hands tightly, almost convulsively interlocked, the photograph’s staging recalls works like Self-Portrait with Lowered Head.

LVD, 2024