Egon Schiele

Otto Kallir, Egon Schiele: Œuvre-Katalog der Gemälde, Vienna, 1966, no. 35, illustrated p. 137 (titled Haus zwischen Bäumen II and as dating from 1907)
Rudolf Leopold, Egon Schiele: Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, London, 1973, no. 125, illustrated p. 542
Gianfranco Malafarina, L'opera di Schiele, Milan, 1982, no. 78, illustrated p. 84 (as dating from 1907-08)
Matthias Arnold, Egon Schiele: Leben und Werk, Stuttgart, 1984, p. 83
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London, 1998, no. 142, illustrated p. 286

In 1906, at the age of sixteen, Schiele passed a rigorous entrance exam for Vienna’s Akademie der Bildenden Künste, to become the youngest of his fellow students at this prestigious art school. Having completed the introductory curriculum, in 1908 he advanced to the General Painting class.

The year 1908, when the present work was executed, represents a pivotal period in the development of Schiele’s art: the first exhibition of his work, organised by his former teacher Professor Strauch, was held in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. Increasingly influenced by Gustav Klimt, whom he had met the previous year, it was during the course of 1908 that Schiele moved away from his academic paintings, to embrace a highly stylised, Jugendstil manner dominated by bolder and flatter patches of pigment, geometric shapes and jewel-like colouration. Whilst Otto Kallir attributed the present work, together with its companion piece of the same title (J. Kallir, op. cit., no. 143), to 1907, Rudolf Leopold suggested a slightly later date on stylistic grounds: ‘It cannot, however, have been produced earlier than the middle of 1908 in view of the outlines of the bush and tree tops as well as those of the house, and the typically Jugendstil palette (purple, violet and blue-green, with a salmon-pink and greenish sky)' (R. Leopold, op. cit., p. 542).

The first owner of Haus zwischen Bäumen I was the painter Hans Massmann, who studied together with Schiele at the Academy of Fine Arts. Whilst attending the General Painting class in 1908-09, Schiele often came into conflict with his teacher, the conservative painter Christian Griepenkerl. In 1909 he united with Hans Massmann and several other like-minded students to form the Neukunstgruppe, which submitted a formal letter of protest to Griepenkerl. Threatened with expulsion as a result of this protest, Schiele and many of his friends withdrew from the Academy. Schiele’s Bildnis des Malers Hans Massmann of 1909 (J. Kallir, op. cit., no. 149) is one of his groundbreaking early portraits, accompanied by others of his fellow Neukunstgruppe members.