Self-Portrait - Egon Schiele

Hyperrealism 1967-2012
<exchanging gazes> 5

Hyperrealism. 1967-2012

22 March to 9 June 2013

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Autor:: Tom Blackwell
Título:: Triumph Trumpet (detail)
Fecha:: 1977

Técnica:: Oil on canvas
Medidas:: 180 x 180 cm.
Ubicacion:: Private Collection, New York.
image © Tom Blackwell photo © Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York

<exchanging gazes> 5: Interior Scenes. Women and Daily Life.

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From 26 February to 10 June 2013

Autor:: Nicolas Maes
Título:: The Naughty Drummer
Fecha:: c. 1655

Técnica:: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Nr. INV. 241 (1930.56)

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Self-Portrait

Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Autor:: Egon Schiele
Título:: Self-Portrait
Fecha:: 1910

Técnica:: Watercolor and charcoal on paper
Medidas:: 45 x 31.5 cm
Úbicacion:: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Numero de inventario: INV. Nr. 737 (1972.19)

More information about this work

No artist was ever as obsessed with his own image as Egon Schiele. From 1910 onwards his narcissism, or his schizophrenia, led him to portray himself in all kinds of poses in numerous positions and gestures imbued with a very provocative brand of eroticism. The artist portrays himself both naked — in the manner of a wounded Saint Sebastian — and clothed, employing a vast repertory of disguises in the role of a caricature actor whose use of gesture verges on the grotesque.

In the present watercolour his emaciated body, which stands out against the neutral background, is captured from a very low viewpoint in order to accentuate his skinniness, and the expressive gesture of his face recalls the exaggerated facial expressions sculpted by his compatriot the sculptor Franz Xavier Messerschmidt (1736–1783). As in most of his portraits, he combines facial gestures — in principle the best ally of expressiveness — with extremely elongated, bony hands.

Paloma Alarcó

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