During his brief yet prolific career, Egon Schiele created hundreds of drawings, watercolours, and oil paintings of the women in his life. His work is generally regarded as Expressionistic, emotional, intense, autobiographical, and highly sexual. In this elegant and beautifully illustrated book, Jane Kallir examines Schiele's depictions of women to argue that there is more to these images than we realize. Drawing from the latest research as well as her own exhaustive familiarity with Schiele's entire oeuvre, Kallir explores four distinct periods, each characterized by a single figure or series of women: the artist's mother and sisters; the often anonymous models of the breakthrough years, 1910 — 11; his lover, Wally Neuzil; and his wife, Edith, and her sister, Adele. Weaving together historical context, biographical information, and observations of the works, Kallir demonstrates how these women relate not only to Schiele's development but to the larger issue of feminine representation. Kallir offers a panoply of significant insights into a central aspect of the artist's achievement, which has never before been the subject of a focused study. Schiele's fans will treasure this beautiful and ground-breaking addition to the literature on this important artist.

Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele produced a prolific body of work before his early death in the flu epidemic of 1918 at the age of 28. His few hundred oils have often been reproduced and are well recognized, but he also created nearly 3000 drawings and watercolours. Limited access to these fragile works and dispersion among several collections have made a comprehensive survey of Schiele's work a rarity. This volume assembles the master draughtsman's works on paper, providing an opportunity to study his rapid artistic development over the course of a brief 12 years of activity. Each year of his output is introduced and the author discusses his step-by-step progression from child prodigy to master of the human form and expression.