On the 19th of May, the work of Viennese artist Egon Schiele will be exhibited for the first time in 20 years, in the Richard Nagy in Old Bond Street. The founder of the gallery, art collector Richard Nagy states in the press release; “For me, the attraction of mounting a Schiele exhibition focusing on women is a combination of two things: the artist’s rebelliousness and the most exciting drawings of women done in western art history. Schiele’s incomparable genius puts him at the forefront of the artistic rebellion. By 1910 he arrived as an Expressionist, exhibiting a virtuoso use of line in psychologically penetrating, sexually explicit figures. This need to draw such subjects was informed by his youthful erotic energy as much as by his need to cock a snook at the art establishment.” This rare exhibition brings together just a few of the plethora of female sketches Schiele created in his short lifetime, dying at the age of 28 from an influenza epidemic in 1918. They show his unconcern for critic’s opinions and reviews, vividly sketching women unabashed and in their frank nudity.
