Schiele

by Wolfgang Georg Fischer

""Hindering the artist is a crime,"" wrote Egon Schiele in 1912. At the time he was in prison for disseminating immoral drawings. Throughout his work the note of defiance, provocation, and rebellion was sounded. Schiele's favorite subjects were female nudes and self-portraits, and he worked at his art with furious commitment, though it was not until shortly before his early death that he began to win real recognition. Today, with Oskar Kokoschka, he is seen as the most important of the Austrian artists who came after Klimt. This study examines the life and work of Egon Schiele through all the major oil paintings and many of his erotic drawings.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction, Biography, History

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Wolfgang Georg Fischer was born in Vienna in 1933. In 1938, after the Nazi occupation of Austria, he emigrated with his family to Yugoslavia. His father escaped to England but in 1940 Wolfgang Fischer was forced to return with his mother to Vienna, where he spent the war and attended school and university. He studied art history in Vienna, Freiburg and Paris, before taking up a research fellowship at Harvard University and teaching at Smith College. In 1963 Dr. Fischer moved to London and joined the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery, of which his father was a co-founder. He worked as a director of Marlborough Fine Art until 1971; the next year he and his father opened Fischer Fine Art.

Wolfgang Fischer's first work of fiction, Interiors, won the 1970 Charles Veillon Prize for the best German novel of that year. It was published in England by Peter Owen in 1971 and has also been translated into French and Polish.

In non-fiction, Fischer is a world-renowned expert on Egon Schiele and his contemporaries. Since first exhibiting the Schiele in 1964, he devoted his attention to classical Viennese Modernism, chiefly Schiele, Kokoschka, and Klimt, regularly showing their works at his London gallery, Fischer Fine Art, and contributing with numerous publications to the art-historical literature. He also contributed to the catalogue raisonne of Schiele's work and has written a monograph on Klimt's partner, fashion designer Emilie Floge.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful art book. I love Schiele. Man could he draw! If you like to draw, like Schiele, or would like to better understand what genious looks like in black lines, please pick this up. It's an artbook. Some of the images could be bigger perhaps, but then it would be a more expensive book. I liked this book, and I paid around 20 for it. Nice.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desire and Decay: The Essence of Egon Schiele

Though originally released in 1998 as a fine monograph by Wolfgang Georg Fischer, SCHIELE is in its present form part of the Taschen 25th Anniversary editions. And in keeping with the quality of Taschen artist monographs this edition is presented on very fine paper with excellent reproductions of Schiele's works as well as a number of photographs of the artist, his family, his models, and his confreres.

Fischer weaves the too brief history of this gifted artist (he died in 1918 at age 28 from the Spanish Influenza) with references to the art of the period at the turn of the century, carefully keeping Schiele in focus with the famous people of the era - artists and writers and statesmen - in as fine a manner as any writer of Schiele biographers.

Many of Schiele's very large paintings are diminished to near postage stamp size, likely due to the overt sexuality of the paintings, while Schiele's landscapes and less controversial paintings are given full-page reproductions. But this is a small flaw in a survey book that informs as well as entertains. Well worth the modest price, even for those who have multiple books detailing this important artist's life and times and work.

Grady Harp

[Rómulo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un pintor al que he perseguido y acechado. Lo mismo ha hecho él conmigo. Me he encontrado en pueblos ínfimos, llevado como por una ráfaga de viento, observando tan sólo unos cuantos cuadros de este pintor tímido, enjuto, azorado.
En este libro faltan obras claves de Schiele, obras que no nos importaría encontrar y ver una y otra vez en cualquier antología suya.

[Mind the Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Egentligen en coffetable:esque bok av standardvariant. En sådan man kanske köper i museishoppen efter utställningen och sedan aldrig mer bläddrar i. Den röda ryggen gjorde att den passade in på projektet #färggladahyllvärmare2021

Boken bildade en kraftfull arty trio i min lockdownkulturkonsumtion under februari tillsammans med filmen 'Tod und Mädchen' (Death and the Maiden) samt det här mycket personliga avsnittet av podden 'The Lonely Palette'. Programmakaren har till och med döpt sin katt till Egon for crying out loud.

http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episo...

Schiele, liksom Nabokov, verkar ha undgått att ha blivit cancelled i vår tid. Är det helt enkelt FÖR skickligt? Tycker om att betrakta frigörelsen från mentorn Klimts konstnärliga uttryck och hur han hittade sin egen, mer expressionistiska, rebelliska och provocerande stil. Filmen fokuserar mycket på relationen med Wally, flickvän och musa. Kort liv. Blev endast 28. Pandemidöden.

"He comes before us as doer and observer, doppelgänger and loner, saint and masturbator, hermit and dandy, prisoner and Death."

[Jay Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great artist! Great book!!

[Zak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schiele was the GG Allin of Expressionism. Live fast, die young, and leave behind beautiful paintings.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick over view of schiele's work and life. A good place to start for those interested in his special brand of ertocism

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Scheile's work. Great edition, with vivid reproductions and a great core story.