Egon Schiele

Wolfgang Gurlitt, Munich
Galleria Galatea, Turin
Cofinarte S.A., Geneva
Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., London (until July 1979)
Serge Sabarsky, New York (acquired in July 1979)
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner

Turin, Galleria Galatea, Schiele, 1963, no. 32, illustrated in the catalogue
Vienna, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien; Linz, Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz; Munich, Museum Villa Stuck and Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Egon Schiele: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1981-82, no. 80, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Vienna, Akademie der Bildenden Künste; Milan, Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera; Palermo, Villa Zito; Tel Aviv Museum; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Salzburg, Rupertinum; Graz, Schloss Plankenwirth; Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum; Bottrop, Josef Alberts Museum and Nürnberg, Kunsthalle,  Egon Schiele, vom Schüler zum Meister: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle 1906-1918, 1984-85, no. 79, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Hôtel de Ville, Salle Saint-Jean; Kaiserslautern, Pfalzgalerie; Bolzano, Museo Civico and Turin, Palazzo Reale, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele: Dessins et Aquarelles, 1984-85, no. 83, illustrated in the catalogue
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Egon Schiele, 1986-87, no. 74
Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Egon Schiele, 1987, no. 86, illustrated in the catalogue
Vienna, Bawag Foundation (and travelling in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia and Poland), Egon Schiele: 100 Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, 1988-97, no. 69, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Schiele, 1995, no. 100, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, 1995, no. 145
Reykjavik, National Gallery of Iceland, Egon Schiele, 1996
Frankfurt, Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Hommage à Serge Sabarsky: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele. Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, 1997, no. 77

Serge Sabarsky, Egon Schiele: Disegni erotici, Milan, 1981, pl. 27, illustrated
Serge Sabarsky, Egon Schiele: Watercolors and Drawings, New York, 1983, pl. 27, illustrated
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1998, p. 532, no. 1581, illustrated

Liegende Frau in gelbem Kleid is a striking composition in which Schiele depicts a clothed woman, focusing his brushwork on her dress, while at the same time imbuing her with a palpable erotic appeal. The elaborately painted yellow dress covers the woman only partially, revealing her left arm and her bare legs, carelessly parted in her state of dreamy abandon. Her eyes wide open, the model is gazing absently into space, as if unaware of being observed. The atmosphere the artist creates in this work is one of freedom, reverie and understated sexuality.

The present image relates to a later oil from 1917, Liegende Frau, now at The Leopold Collection (fig. 2), in which the positioning of the recumbent model's legs is nearly identical to that of the woman in the present work. In Liegende Frau mit blondem Haar, now at The Baltimore Museum of Art (fig. 1), completed around the same time as the present work, Schiele positions his model leaning towards the viewer, but draped in a more amorphously shaped garment. As in the present work, the woman in the yellow dress takes up the entirety of the picture surface. Her physical presence is so dominant that her head and feet appear to extend beyond the edges of the sheet, and the figure appears boxed in within the confines of the picture plane.

The bright yellow tonality of the woman's dress, as well as the green and red highlights with which Schiele underlined the volume of her body, are characteristic of the new colouristic developments in the artist's work, that occurred in 1914. As Jane Kallir has noted: "The practice of edging flesh in contrasting tones of red, green, and ochre continues in the early part of the year, and these modeled areas are characteristically set off against flat, brightly colored patches of drapery, clothing, or hair. Gradually the multihued brushstrokes become bolder, with colors overlapping to sculpt denser volumes. Perfecting an approach, traceable to 1913, that he will pursue for the rest of his life, Schiele uses a translucent underglaze of ochre or brown to define principal volumes, then superimposes dabs of red, green, and blue to mold an almost palpable bulk" (J. Kallir, op. cit., p. 520).

Jane Kallir has written about the placement of the models in these drawings, noting the psychological implications that they held for the artist: "Schiele's growing concern with plasticity eventually generates a more organic, fluid line. In comparison with earlier 1914 work, nudes from the latter part of the year have rounded, voluptuous contours. There are hints of an almost conventional realism in the simplifiction of line and in the integration of contour and volume. As a result, skewed perspective - always an influence of the poses - now assumes a more disturbing character. The relative two-dimensionality of his preceding style aesthetically neutralized Schiele's affinity to spatial dislocation, but the increased volumetric density of his work from 1914 on seems to demand a concomitant realism. By refusing to bow to this demand and doggedly persisting in signing drawings of recumbent figures as verticals, Schiele intentionally creates a spatial unease that heightens the work's totemic impact" (ibid., p. 520).

 

Fig. 1, Egon Schiele, Liegende Frau mit blondem Haar, 1914, gouache, watercolour and pencil on paper, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore

Fig. 2, Egon Schiele, Liegende Frau, 1917, oil on canvas, Leopold-Museum, Vienna