Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele, (born June 12, 1890, Tulln, near Vienna—died Oct. 31, 1918, Vienna), Austrian Expressionist painter, draftsman, and printmaker noted for the eroticism of his figurative works. As a student at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1907–09), Schiele was strongly influenced by the Jugendstil movement, the German Art Nouveau. He met Gustav Klimt, leader of the Vienna Sezession group, and the linearity and subtlety of Schiele’s work owe much to Klimt’s decorative elegance. Schiele, however, emphasized expression over decoration, heightening the emotive power of line with a feverish tension. He concentrated from the beginning on the human figure, and his candid, agitated treatment of erotic themes caused a sensation.