Egon Schiele: His Life and Death

Written and illustrated by Xavier Coste    

Unveils the Austro-Hungarian artist's relationship with colleagues and models and the passions that drove him further into his craft. ―Douglas Rednour, Library Journal     

Schiele's brief, controversial career is examined with bold insights in this graphic biography... Coste doesn't shy away from the emotional brutality of Schiele's story. In fact, he embraces it, weaving elements of Schiele's eerie, idiosyncratic paintings with his own artistic style. Drawing on the same Expressionist techniques that drove Schiele's artistic passions, Coste conjures a story that beckons the reader to see the world through its subject's eyes. ―Publishers Weekly  

The story of the artistic genius who provoked early 20th-century tolerance.    

Egon Schiele is an evocative depiction based on the life of the Austro-Hungarian artist whose short career spanned the turn of the 20th century. Schiele (1890-1918) was a painter known for full-frontal portraits of naked women (and on many occasions, himself). They were stark and disturbing. He painted his subjects in gaunt, twisting and unnatural poses. Their voyeuristic tone and blatant eroticism outraged society, landing him in prison for 24 days. Nevertheless, his works would have a strong influence on the development of expressionist art.   

The book focuses on the artist's creative years, the development of his talent, his relationships with other artists, including Gustav Klimt, the women in his life, and his obsession with making provocative art. Quickly following Schiele's early successes were his failures. In the end, it was the Spanish flu that killed him at the tragically young age of 28.

Egon Schiele is a seductive and intimate portrait of an artistic genius who was both lauded and condemned for his brilliance. His works, at one time judged to be disgusting and perverse, are now considered masterpieces and are in museums all around the world.

Hardcover
72 pages; fully illustrated
Firefly Books, 2017
8.5 x 11.75 inches
ISBN 9781770859401
Graphic Novel