Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele was a famous Austrian painter, famous for being influenced by the works of Gustav Klimt and pioneering into the art of expressionism. He is still remembered for his outrageously bold and sexual drawings, the portraits of nude models and himself. The sexual undertone in his work was highly criticized during his time, was called vulgar and grotesque but today they are considered as masterpieces. He was born and brought up in Austria and lived all of his life there. His family did not approve of his painting endeavors and talent. But after the death of his father, his maternal uncle did him a favor by letting him pursue his passion and soon he came in contact with the famous artist Gustav Klimt who influenced him and facilitated his growth in the realm of art and expression. Schiele started with condemning the conventional structure of painting, got influenced by Klimt for a good part of his career and then moved towards expressing what defined him ––freedom of human sexuality and its bold portrayal. He had quite an exciting and adventurous life before he succumbed to his untimely death––he practiced extreme lifestyle with his mistresses, got imprisoned for seducing young girls, had to join the army during the World War I to become a guard of Russian POW, married a socially acceptable woman––all of these incidents influenced his paintings a great deal and helped in his evolution as an artist. He has been described as an artist who was stricken with the tragedy of his father’s death and his sole solace was to express himself in the dark side of sexuality, death and decay.