His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.
Gustav Klimt , a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele. Schiele was born in in Tulln , Lower Austria. When he was 11 years old, Schiele moved to the nearby city of Krems and later to Klosterneuburg to attend secondary school. To those around him, Schiele was regarded as a strange child.
Shy and reserved, he did poorly at school except in athletics and drawing, [3] and was usually in classes made up of younger pupils. He also displayed incestuous tendencies towards his younger sister Gertrude who was known as Gerti , and his father, well aware of Egon's behaviour, was once forced to break down the door of a locked room that Egon and Gerti were in to see what they were doing only to discover them developing film.
When he was sixteen he took the twelve-year-old Gerti by train to Trieste without permission and spent a night in a hotel room with her. When Schiele was 14 years old, his father died from syphilis , and he became a ward of his maternal uncle, Leopold Czihaczek, also a railway official. His main teacher at the academy was Christian Griepenkerl , a painter whose strict doctrine and ultra-conservative style frustrated and dissatisfied Schiele and his fellow students so much that he left three years later.
In , Schiele sought out Gustav Klimt, who generously mentored younger artists. Klimt took a particular interest in the young Schiele, buying his drawings, offering to exchange them for some of his own, arranging models for him and introducing him to potential patrons.
