Egon Schiele
Austrian painter (1890-1918)
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (German: [ˈeːɡɔn ˈʃiːlə] ; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterise Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.
Biography
Early life
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was born on 12 June 1890 in Tulln, Lower Austria. His father, Adolf Schiele, the station master of the Tulln station in the Austrian Federal Railways, was born in 1851 in Vienna to Karl Ludwig Schiele, a German from Ballenstedt and Aloisia Schimak; Egon's mother Marie (née Soukup) was born in 1861 in Český Krumlov (Krumau) to Franz Soukup, a Czech father from Mirkovice, and Aloisia Poferl, a German Bohemian mother from Český Krumlov. Schiele had three sisters, Elvira, Melanie and Gertrude. Elvira died as a child of congenital syphilis. Before the birth of Schiele, his mother had suffered the stillbirths of three sons.
According to family lore, Adolf Schiele had contracted syphilis during his honeymoon in Trieste, when he had visited a brothel after his new wife, scared of the consummation of the marriage, fled their bedroom.
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