Opening and closing dates: October 2, 2012–January 6, 2013
Curator: Klaus Albrecht Schröder
Galleries: 305, 306, 307
Egon Schiele is a sweeping vision of the creative universe of one of the 20th century’s most important artists through approximately one hundred drawings, gouaches, watercolors, and photographs on loan from the Albertina Museum, Vienna. This institution boasts one of the world’s largest collections of historical graphic work, including the most important compilation of works on paper by this great Austrian Expressionist.
This show offers a unique perspective on Schiele’s stylistic evolution over the course of an intensely prolific decade, cut short by his untimely death at the age of 28, which underscores the decisive role that this artist’s graphic work played in shaping the history of art and consolidating his own international reputation.
Covering every stage of his career—the early pieces produced while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, works heavily influenced by Gustav Klimt and Viennese Modernism, and the output of his final years in which he made a break with naturalism, characterized by a radical use of color and new, unsettling motifs such as explicitly erotic nudes or portraits of children—Egon Schiele is a singular, fascinating review of the oeuvre of an artist who revolutionized art history.