Seated Male Nude (Self-Portrait)

1910 · Leopold Museum, Vienna

portrait

In the radical and obsessive ways in which he envisioned himself, Egon Schiele staged his body, as it were, and through facial expressions and corporal gesticulations, brought it to the limit of what is anatomically possible. An early highlight of this was the 1910 painting Seated Male Nude (Self-Portrait). The 20-year-old artist presented himself naked, in an almost painful physical position.

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About the Artist

Egon Schiele

1890 – 1918

Austrian painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He is, with Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), one of the major figures of Austrian Expressionism, despite the brevity of his artistic career, which lasted only about ten years. While remaining faithful to the initial influences on his work of the Vienna Secession, and in particular of the art of Gustav Klimt, he developed a personal and expressive style. He introduced psychologically and sexually intense subject matter that was radical in its subjectivity and highly influential on later generations of artists. His distinctly personal style made him one of the most important representatives of early Viennese Expressionism. His oeuvre includes landscapes, portraits, and above all, nudes, which were considered scandalous in his day.

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