Egon Schiele

Christian M. Nebehay, Vienna
Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York (and sold: Sotheby's, London, November 30, 1988, lot 444)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1990, no. 671, pl. 12, illustrated pp. 66 & 424
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1998, no. 671, pl. 12, illustrated pp. 66 & 424

Executed on buff colored wove paper, not laid down. The sheet is fixed to the mount at various points along the perimeter of the verso. Some minor flattened creases along the perimeter of the sheet and notably in the lower left corner. Artist pinhole in the upper left and upper and lower right corners. Remnants of old framer's tape visible along the left upper edge towards the corner. Some minor bubbling in the thickest areas of purple pigment on the figure's head and two small stains to the figure's proper right shin. Otherwise apart from some scattered, faint spots of foxing this work is in very good condition.
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Sitzender männlicher Akt mit gesenktem Kopf belongs to a group of highly expressive male nudes that Schiele executed in 1910. During the course of that year, Schiele explored the male figure in depth, creating highly charged compositions by depicting his subject in variously contorted postures and exaggerating his physical features.

In these works, the contours of the body are deftly outlined in charcoal to reveal the strong, sharp skeleton beneath while the flesh is highlighted with washes of red, green and yellow watercolor. Although the majority of these works are not directly acknowledged as ‘self-portraits’, the artist was his own favored and most readily available model and they are generally considered to be studies of his own physiognomy. Writing about Schiele’s male nudes of this period, Kirk Varnedoe noted: "After a few tentative and stylish early efforts at self-definition Schiele began in 1910 to produce the series of painted and drawn self-portraits that are among the most extraordinary works of early modern Viennese art. Again and again, he depicted himself as a scrawny and scrofulous nude, in hues of red, fiery orange, ochre, and occasionally bruised purple-blue, tangled and foreshortened into a contortionist's repertoire of strenuous poses" (Kirk Varnedoe, in Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture & Design (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1986, pp. 174-176).

Since the man's face is hidden from the viewer, it is impossible to determine whether this torso is based on Schiele's observation of his own figure. Regardless, it is not so much the man's physique that is reminiscent of the artist, but primarily the mood and the sense of anxiety expressed by its figure that are highly reflective of the artist's mental and emotional state. As with many of the artist’s nude self-portraits, in the present work the body is elongated and emaciated, revealing strong shoulder blades and the rib cage protruding from beneath the figure's taut skin. The truncated limbs and careful juxtaposition of color and line imbue the work with a sense of dynamism and serve to balance the composition, focusing attention on the torso which retains a remarkable expressiveness.