Egon Schiele
By 1914, Egon Schiele had stopped letting his models look back at him. Faces that once burned with raw, confrontational intensity—a signature of his earlier work—were now flattened into stylized, almost masklike surfaces, deliberately withholding identity. The Green Stocking is a good example: gouache and pencil rendering a reclining figure whose face tells us almost nothing about who she is.
That ambiguity may be the point. The woman could be Wally Neuzil, Schiele's longtime muse, collaborator, and lover, who had posed for him more than any other model for years. She also might not be; that uncertainty says something quietly devastating about where Schiele's life stood in 1914.
Around this time, Schiele had grown captivated by his neighbors, sisters Adele and Edith Harms. They were respectable, middle-class women, a world away from the bohemian circles he'd shared with Wally. As his attention drifted toward Edith, his bond with Wally began to fray. He would go on to marry Edith in June 1915. Wally, understanding exactly what that meant, cut off all contact with Schiele just before the wedding. They never spoke again; she died in 1917 as a 23-year-old, volunteering as a nurse during World War I. He died in October 1918, a few days after contracting the Spanish Flu.
P.S. Celebrate the art of the Vienna Secession with our Vienna Secession Undated Weekly Planner. Today is your last chance to get it, along with everything else in our Shop, with 25% off! :)
P.P.S. Today's painter was one of the most important artists of the early 20th century. Here's Egon Schiele in 10 masterpieces!