Egon Schiele

Galerie Würthle, Vienna
Viktor Fogarassy, Graz
Private Collection, Vienna (until September 1979)
Serge Sabarsky, New York (acquired in September 1979)
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner

New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, 1965, no. 29
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Egon Schiele, 1975, no. 181, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Serge Sabarsky Gallery, German Expressionists, 1984, no. 23
Tokyo, Isetan Museum; Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum; Nara, Prefectorial Museum; Kofu City, Yamanshi Prefectural Museum and Kamakura Museum of Art, Egon Schiele und Wien zur Jahrhundertwende, 1986, no. 39, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Vienna, Historisches Musem der Stadt Wien, Egon Schiele: frühe Reife, ewige Kindheit, 1990, no. 8.1, illustrated in the catalogue
Vienna, Bawag Foundation (and travelling in Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Czechoslovakia and Slovenia), Egon Schiele: 100 Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 1988-93, no. 56 (no. 62 in Vienna), illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Schiele, 1995, no. 92, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1998, p. 513, no. 1423, illustrated

The self-portrait was a recurring subject throughout Schiele's œuvre, in particular in the years immediately following his imprisonment on obscenity charges in 1912. This genre was an important vehicle for the expression of the artist's changing self-awareness, as he vacillated between emotions of haunted paranoia and dandy-esque arrogance. In 1912, Viennese officials raided the artist's studio and found several erotic drawings that they deemed as morally hazardous and punishable by law. Although the period of imprisonment was relatively brief, Schiele was devastated, feeling his personal freedoms sorely violated. The effect the event had on his art was profound. While in prison, he made several depictions of himself covered in a tattered blanket, with only his face, bearded and contorted in misery, visible to the viewer. The body, once the primary vehicle of the artist's self-expression, is no longer the subject of scrutiny. In the paintings and drawings that he completed after his release, there is no longer such an emphasis on the eroticism that had previously dominated his work.  This, however, is not a sign that Schiele had succumbed to social pressure and toned down his art accordingly; his work of these years takes on a new degree of maturity and technical mastery with its focus on the sheer beauty of line. 

Schiele executed the present work in 1913, at the age of 23. Rendered in what would be regarded as one of his signature poses, his body is self-consciously mannered and his fingers are splayed and pressed together in a meaningful, almost prayer-like, gesture. Unlike some of his self-portraits from earlier years in which he depicts his body entirely in the nude, he has chosen here to portray himself clothed in a blue cloak. No longer the narcissistic, erotically-obsessed adolescent of his earlier compositions, the artist is depicted here as a self-possessed, mature adult with emphasis on the psychology of his character, rather than his physicality. The tilt of his head, the arch of his brow, and the unsettling stare of his hollow eyes deliver a visual impact that is perhaps more powerful and confrontational than the image of his nude body. 

In Selbstbildnis mit gefalteten Händen, the artist is less concerned with the intricacies of his anatomy, and more focused on the visual impact of the composition as a whole. Much of the emphasis here is on the outlining of the figure in blue gouache.  Although the details of the clothing and accoutrements are left to the viewer's imagination, Schiele provides us here with a powerful physical presence. The focus of the composition is on the figure's elongated, melancholically inclined head, as well as on his hands, with the typical V-shaped gesture of the fingers. This motif recurs many times in Schiele's work (figs. 2 & 3) as a sign charged with personal meaning. Discussing this gesture, Jane Kallir commented: "An artist, of course, holds great power in his fingertips, but the gesture is not one of command. Rather, Schiele shows himself at the mercy of his own creative powers, reaching out as in a trance to find an eternal truth (J. Kallir, Egon Schiele (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. 126).

Commenting on the evolution of Schiele's style and his unrestrained ambition and devotion to his art, which gave rise to such expressive works as this self-portrait, Jane Kallir wrote:  "Egon Schiele's life and work comprise the quintessential coming-of-age story, that of a young man striving inexorably toward what was outside his grasp. Schiele's youthful solipsism and artistic ambition often brought him face-to-face with practical difficulties - among them financial straits and societal disapproval. But it was also his ambition that propelled his technical and stylistic development at such an astonishing pace; indeed, one of the most remarkable aspects of Schiele's short life is the ground that he covered in his career before his death in 1918, at the age of twenty-eight" (J. Kallir, Egon Schiele, Drawings and Watercolors, New York, 2003, p. 8).

Fig. 1, The artist in 1914

Fig. 2, Egon Schiele, Selbstbildnis mit gesenktem Kopf, 1912, oil on panel, Leopold-Museum, Vienna

Fig. 3, Egon Schiele, Selbstbildnis mit schwarzem Tongefäss und gespreizten Fingern, 1911, oil on panel, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna

Fig. 4, Egon Schiele, Selbstbildnis in lila Hemd und dunklem Anzug, stehend, 1914, gouache, watercolour and pencil on paper, Private Collection

Fig. 5, Egon Schiele, Selbstbildnis, Schulterbüste, 1912, watercolour and pencil on paper, Private Collection