Curator, Starr Figura: Egon Schiele couldn't afford professional models, so he would just invite young working class girls into his studio to model for him. It's thought that he would have them lie down, say, on a couch, and then he would climb up on a ladder or something like that so he could look down at them from above, and that would produce a sort of unusual, slightly jarring angle.
He had a very particular kind of line. It's taut and tense, and often it gives his works a very pronounced, dramatic kind of silhouette. It also contributes to the psychological tension of the portrayal.
Schiele often got in trouble for the sexual nature of his works. He was actually brought up on charges of immorality, and the judge burned one of his drawings in the court.
Narrator: Schiele belonged to a group of artists known as The Austrian Expressionists. Some of his contemporaries include Oskar Kokoschka, whose work is also in this gallery.
Starr Figura: Schiele and Kokoschka were basically rivals. Kokoschka was a few years older. And felt a bit threatened, I think, by Sheila, and so would often express disdain for his talent and his work.
But in fact, the two had a lot in common. Kokoschka and Schiele were interested in transgressing the stiff social mores of the day. And they were focused very particularly on portraiture and the body, especially the naked body, as a way of penetrating the human psyche.