Egon Schiele

Galerie Würthle, Vienna
(Probably) acquired from the above by the late owner in the 1960s

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1990, no. 1663, illustrated p. 542

Executed on cream wove paper not laid down. There is a crease running vertically down the left edge and a small crease to the lower left corner. There are tiny spots of foxing throughout the sheet and light time staining to all four edges but mainly to the right edge, running 4cm. into the work. This work is in good condition. Colours: the paper tone is less yellow in the original.
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The self-portrait was a recurring subject throughout Schiele's œuvre, in particular in the years immediately following his imprisonment on obscenity charges in 1912. The effect the event had on his art was profound. The body, once the primary vehicle of the artist's self-expression, is no longer the subject of scrutiny. In the paintings and drawings that he completed after his release, there is no longer such an emphasis on the eroticism that had previously dominated his work. This, however, is not a sign that Schiele had succumbed to social pressure and toned down his art accordingly; his work of these years takes on a new degree of maturity and technical mastery with its focus on the sheer beauty of line.

Unlike some of his self-portraits from earlier years in which he depicts his body entirely in the nude, he has chosen here to portray himself clothed in a jacket. No longer the narcissistic, erotically-charged adolescent of his earlier compositions, the artist is depicted here as a self-possessed, mature adult, with emphasis on the psychology of his character, rather than his physicality. The tilt of his head, the arch of his brow, and the unsettling stare of his hollow eyes deliver a visual impact that is perhaps more powerful and confrontational than the image of his nude body. In Selbstdarstellung, the artist is less concerned with the intricacies of his anatomy, and more focused on the visual impact of the composition as a whole. Much of the emphasis here is on the outlining of the figure. Although the details of the clothing and accoutrements are left to the viewer's imagination, Schiele provides us here with a powerful physical presence.   

Commenting on the evolution of Schiele's style and his unrestrained ambition and devotion to his art, which gave rise to such expressive works as this self-portrait, Jane Kallir wrote: 'Egon Schiele's life and work comprise the quintessential coming-of-age story, that of a young man striving inexorably toward what was outside his grasp. Schiele's youthful solipsism and artistic ambition often brought him face-to-face with practical difficulties - among them financial straits and societal disapproval. But it was also his ambition that propelled his technical and stylistic development at such an astonishing pace; indeed, one of the most remarkable aspects of Schiele's life is the ground that he covered in his career before his death in 1918, at the age of twenty-eight' (J. Kallir, Egon Schiele, Drawings and Watercolors, New York, 2003, p. 8).