Schiele, Egon

(born , June 12, 1890, Tulln, Austria—died Oct. 31, 1918, Vienna) Austrian painter, draftsman, and printmaker. He was strongly influenced by the Jugendstil movement, and the linearity and subtlety of his work owe much to Gustav Klimt's decorative elegance. Still, he always emphasized expression over decoration, heightening the emotive power of line with a feverish intensity. His candid, agitated, erotic images—often portraits of women— caused a sensation, and in 1912 he was briefly imprisoned for indecency. His landscapes exhibit the same febrile quality of colour and line. A special room was reserved for his work at a Viennese exhibition in 1918, just before he died in the influenza epidemic of that year. He has since been recognized as one of the great artists of Expressionism.

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