Egon Schiele's career was short, intense, and amazingly productive. Before succumbing to influenza in 1918 at the age of twenty-eight, he created over three hundred oil paintings and several thousand works on paper. The human figure provided Schiele with his most potent subject matter for both paintings and drawings. The self-portraits of his large series of watercolors and paintings produced between 1910 and 1918—of which this one is a prime example—are searing, psychologically complex images. The emaciated, tortured figure of the artist, bony and angular, bristles with an inner tension made visible by the agitated pencil line and painted white surrounding aura. Schiele stares wildly, his large, dark eyes glaring menacingly, his mouth open, and his shock of hair standing on end. In a pose suggestive of the crucified Christ, his arm is thrust out awkwardly and bent sharply at the elbow. Color is limited to shades of brown, with only certain areas of the body (mouth, nipples, navel, and genitals) tinted red.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): E.S. / 1911
[Kunstverlag Wolfrum, Vienna, until ca. 1921; sold ca. 1921, for Kr 20,000, to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (ca. 1921–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1939–82; his bequest to MMA)
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 209.
New York. Galerie St. Etienne. "Watercolors and Drawings by Austrian Artists from the Dial Collection," May 2–28, 1960, no catalogue.
Worcester Art Museum. "Selections from the Dial Collection," November 13–30, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial Revisited," June 29–August 22, 1971, no catalogue.
Worcester Art Museum. "'The Dial': Arts and Letters in the 1920s," March 7–May 10, 1981, no. 131.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Egon Schiele," April 27–June 4, 1989, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Egon Schiele," March 27–July 29, 1990, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nudes: A Selection from the Bequest of Scofield Thayer," February 12–October 31, 1993, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Looking At You," January 26–September 30, 2001, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Lens and the Mirror, Part 1: Modern Self-Portraits from the Collection," April 7–July 12, 2009, no catalogue.
Vienna. Belvedere. "Egon Schiele: Self-Portraits and Portraits," February 17–June 13, 2011, no. 38.
New York. Neue Galerie. "Egon Schiele: Portraits," October 9, 2014–January 19, 2015, extended to April 20, 2015, no. 111.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection," July 3–October 7, 2018, no. 12.
Nicholas Joost. Scofield Thayer and The Dial: An Illustrated History. Carbondale, Ill., 1964, ill. between pp. 268 and 269.
Lisa M. Messinger in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1984–1985. New York, 1985, p. 50, ill.
Gary Tinterow et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 8, Modern Europe. New York, 1987, p. 101, colorpl. 77.
Klaus Albrecht Schröder. Egon Schiele: Eros and Passion. Munich, 1995, ill. p. 52 (color detail).
Jane Kallir. Egon Schiele. The Complete Works Including a Biography and Catalogue Raisonné. Expanded edition (1st ed., 1990). New York, 1998, p. 300 under no. P.190, p. 456, no. D.953, ill. and colorpl. 23.
Jane Kallir. Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolors. Ed. Ivan Vartanian. London, 2003, p. 139, ill. p. 167 (color).
Klaus Albrecht Schröder. Egon Schiele. Ed. Klaus Albrecht Schröder. Exh. cat., Albertina. Vienna, 2005, pp. 154, 400, no. 71, ill. p. 157 (color).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2012, p. 402, ill. (color).
Sabine Rewald inObsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. New York, 2018, pp. 54–56, 125, no. 12, ill. p. 64 (color).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 402, ill. (color).
In this preface to the Obsession catalogue, exhibition curator Sabine Rewald writes about the "private pleasures" that drew Scofield Thayer to nudes by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Pablo Picasso.
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