This fascinating new book explores how Egon Schiele reinvented the art of portraiture, brilliantly capturing the inner lives of his numerous subjects including himself. This book traces Schiele s development as a portraitist through four principal chronological phases, from 1906 to 1918. Starting with the artist s rigorous training at the Vienna Academy, it chronicles Schiele s eventual break with academia and the emergence of his Expressionistic style. As Schiele honed his technical abilities, he gathered a coterie of patrons-many of whom he immortalized on canvas-and developed a tendency toward realism and introspection.This volume also offers a close examination of Schiele s self-portraits and his relationship with Gustav Klimt, Schiele s gestic language in the context of contemporaneous photography and the silent film, as well as brief biographies of Schiele s subjects and transcriptions of illuminating letters pertaining to his life and work.

Preface

Agnes Husslein-Arco

Introduction

Agnes Husslein-Arco and Jane Kallir

Egon Schiele: Self-Portraits

An eternal dream full of life's sweet excess

Agnes Husslein-Arco and Alfred Weidinger

Attitudes and Gestures as Reflections of the Conception of Gender

Mexander Klee

Egon Schiele's Image of Woman: Between Saint and Whore?

Stephanie Auer

Plates

With short texts by Jane Kallir

Early Works (1906-1909)

The Expressionist Breakthrough (1910-1911)

Coming of Age (1912-1915)

Late Portraits (1916-1918)

Egon Schiele's Letters: The Soul within the Body

Marianne Hussl-Hormann

Transcriptions of the Letters Reproduced

Chronology

Jane Kallir

List of Works

Lenders

Egon Schiele in the Belvedere

Authors

Imprint