Schiele, Egon [key], 1890–1918, Austrian expressionist painter and draftsman, studied Vietta Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by the French impressionists, then by Gustav Klimt, Schiele developed a taut, linear style, emphasizing attenuated anatomical structure in drawings and paintings that often have strong sexual subject matter. Best known for his gaunt self-portraits and erotic figure studies, he also painted haunting portraits of his contemporaries and dark, brooding landscapes. With Kokoschka, he was in the forefront of the Austrian expressionist movement (see expressionism) until his sudden death at 28 of influenza. The Neue Galerie, New York City, has the largest collection of works by Schiele in the United States.
See biographies by F. Whitford (1985), S. Wilson (1987), and J. Kallir (2003); E. Mitsch, The Art of Egon Schiele (tr., 2d ed. 1988); M. Dabrowski, Egon Schiele: The Leopold Collection (1998); R. Price, ed., Egon Schiele: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections (2005).
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