Egon Schiele: Portraits

Munich / New York: Prestel / Neue Galerie, 2014. Hardcover. VG/VG. Aquamarine cloth, gilt letters on spine, black & color illustrated dust jacket, 296 pp., color illustrations and portraits throughout. Issued in conjunction with a 2014-2015 exhibition of portraiture rendered by Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918). "Despite a career that lasted less than a decade, Schiele is considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. A protege of Gustav Klimt, Schiele is celebrated for his singular style of draftsmanship, unusual use of color, and physically raw, often sexually provocative depictions of his sitters. Schiele's expressive style and controversial subject matter played an important role in the advancement of modernism in Europe. ... Both the catalogue and the exhibition are divided into six groupings of the artist's work: Family and Academy; Fellow Artists; Sitters and Patrons; Eros; Lovers; and Self-Portraits and Allegorical Self-Portraits. In addition, there is a section highlighting a traumatic and pivotal period in Schiele's life: his arrest and imprisonment during the spring of 1912. The color plates document the evolution of the artist's style, both pre- and post-imprisonment. Schiele's untimely death at the age of 28 adds a mythic quality to his abbreviated career." (dj) With five thematic and illustrated essays, and many intriguing illustrations.