New York Neue Galerie

Egon Schiele was born in Austria on June 12, 1890. He developed a passion for drawing and painting early, and his teachers advised his family to send him to the Academy of the Visual Arts in Vienna, which he entered at age 16. By 1908, at only age 18, Schiele was given his first public exhibition. He died tragically young in 1918 from the Spanish influenza epidemic.

In his brief life, Schiele was considered to be a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its sexuality and self-portraits, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings marked him as an early exponent of Expressionism.

This coffee-table style book includes plates of his paintings, watercolors and drawings as well as biographical material. Those who peruse his work will be struck by the intensity of his work and by how much it seems to reveal about his preoccupations and obsessions. This book is a must for fans of the Viennese Expressionist movement and art lovers generally.… (altro)

Enthusiasts of early 20th century art are likely to be fascinated by this book, which shows, and discusses, a lot of work that is not widely exhibited or reproduced, at least not in the US. The book is the catalog of an exhibit of the same title held at the Neue Galerie in New York. The reproductions are accompanied by a series of illuminating essays. The primary focus is -- as the title suggests -- on Russian art, with the German works shown serving as counterpoint. The exception here is Kandinsky, who, as one of the essays points out, is counted as Russian in Russia, but whose work is widely shown in exhibits of German modernism - there's lots of Kandinsky in this book. After seeing the exhibit and reading the book, it seems to me that the Russian/German connection was less powerful than the influence of French art on both German and Russian work. The book also brings out the powerful influence of Russian folk art on the painters of the teens. In any event, there are some stunning pictures in here that were completely new to me -- check out Grigoriev's "Portrait of M. Ya. Yasnaya", Khodasevich's "Persian Boy", and Lentulov's "Victorious Battle".… (altro)