Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter, draftsman, and printmaker, and one of the leading figures of Austrian Expressionism. A protege of Gustav Klimt, he developed a raw, intensely linear style built from twisted body shapes and an unflinching, often explicitly sexual treatment of the nude, seen across a large body of self-portraits as well as works such as Seated Woman with Bent Knee and The Family. Schiele's provocative subject matter drew hostility in his own lifetime, and his career was cut short when he died at twenty-eight during the 1918 influenza pandemic, three days after his pregnant wife Edith died of the same illness.