EGON SCHIELE · 40th Ed.

After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) stepped out of the shadow of his mentor and role model, Gustav Klimt, he had only ten years to inscribe his distinctive style in the annals of modern history before the Spanish flu took its toll. his life. Being a child prodigy well aware of his own genius and an inveterate provocateur, this did not prove to be much of a challenge for him.

His drawn, emaciated figures, his radical depiction of sexuality, and his self-portraits in which he was shown with haggard facial expressions bordering on genius and madness, did not have the decorative quality of Klimt's anthems of love, sexuality, and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele's work expressed a brutal directness that would disgust and change Viennese society irreversibly.

Although his creations were later branded "degenerate" and for a time virtually forgotten, they influenced generations of artists, from Günter Brus and Francis Bacon to Tracey Emin. Today, his work, then misunderstood, continues to fetch exorbitant prices on the international art market.

First published in an XL edition, this monograph is now available in a shorter, more compact version. It presents the paintings and drawings that recall the prolific last decade of Schiele's life. The works are accompanied by essays presenting the life and work of the Austrian master to place him in the context of European expressionism and to examine his extraordinary legacy.