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Lyricist, 1911

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil on canvas
80.5×80 cm

Artists

  • Egon Schiele

    (Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
In this work, executed with rapid brushstrokes and without an underdrawing, the artist presents himself as a “lyricist” in an extremely contorted posture. His head is unnaturally inclined to the left and partially surrounded by a white, nimbus-like space, while his eyes are looking out sideways from under his raised eyebrows with a skeptical expression. Except for a short jacket, which visually blends with the background, he is naked and pale. Only his penis and his navel, which is arranged in an anatomically incorrect position but directs the axial composition towards the hands, are depicted in a shining red. Following the convention of the square picture format, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) fills the canvas with raw, painful, abject corporeality, vividly expressing the crisis of the subject. Created in early 1911, Lyricist was presented in Schiele’s first solo exhibition at Vienna’s Galerie Miethke in April of the same year and reproduced in the accompanying publication together with a text by Albert Paris Gütersloh (1887–1973).

VG, 2022

Object data

Artist/author
  • Egon Schiele
Title
Lyricist
Date
1911
Art movement
Expressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
80.5×80 cm
Signature
Monogrammed and dated upper left: S. 11
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 450
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).
  • Tobias Natter/Christian Bauer u.a.: Egon Schiele Gemälde 1909-1918 (Kleinformat), Köln 2020.
  • Tobias Natter: Egon Schiele, Sämtliche Gemälde 1909-1918, Köln 2017.
  • Egon Schiele. Melancholie und Provokation, hrsg. von Elisabeth/Diethard Leopold, Wien 2011 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 23.09.2011–19.04.2012).
  • Wien 1900. Sammlung Leopold, hrsg. von Diethard Leopold/Peter Weinhäupl, Wien u.a. 2009.
  • Der Lyriker Egon Schiele. Briefe und Gedichte 1910–1912 aus der Sammlung Leopold, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold/Elisabeth Leopold, München 2008.
  • 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: P192
  • Leopold 1972/2020: 172
  • Natter 2017: 52
  • O. Kallir 1966: 128
  • O. Kallir (Nirenstein) 1930: 78
Keywords
man/boythe (nude) human figurejacket/coat/capepenis/phallushead slanting to the rightnavelpostures and gestures of the handclothing (upper part of the body)

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Nachlass Egon Schiele, Wien (1918);
Arthur Stemmer, Wien / London (vor 1930-1954); (1)
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (1954-1994); (2)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. Otto Nirenstein, Egon Schiele. Persönlichkeit und Werk, Berlin 1930, Nr. 78.
  2. Sonja Niederacher, Egon Schiele. „Der Lyriker“, Dossier vom 30.06.2010; Diethard Leopold, Rudolf Leopold - Kunstsammler, Wien 2003, S. 54-61.

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Search in collection

man/boythe (nude) human figurejacket/coat/capepenis/phallushead slanting to the rightnavelpostures and gestures of the handclothing (upper part of the body)