On the trail of Egon Schiele

I first heard of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele in a radio interview with David Bowie when I was at school. At university I got a travel scholarship to do some research on him in Austria. I stayed a short train ride outside of Vienna (Payerbach-Reichenau) and, beside going into the city, I travelled out to Neulengbach (under an hour from the city centre) to where Schiele lived and had his studio at one of the most productive times of his life. When I went there that time (1984) there was no sign of Schiele in the town. When I went to ask the way to his studio I was told people didn’t talk about him.

Last summer I was working at ORF in Vienna and took the opportunity to revisit Neulengbach and various other Schiele-related places. In the intervening 33 years much has changed. Schiele has a strong presence in Neulengbach and in his nearby birthplace, Tulln, and is widely celebrated. There are posters across Vienna and galleries of various sizes.

In my eyes he’s one of the great artists of the 20th century and since this year is the centenary of his early death (at the age of just 28 from the Spanish flu epidemic in the wake of the Great War) I’m publishing this photo-post to mark the occasion. The day of his death was 31st October 1918 (his birth was 12th June, the same day as my other half).

On the trail of Schiele in Tulln, Austria

Schiele’s birthplace – upstairs in the station at Tulln

The artist whose name dare not be spoken three decades ago is now celebrated and signed

The plaque at his birthplace

The station where his father was station master (before he set fire to it in his madness)

Schiele’s school, Tulln

A presence in the streets of Tulln

The Egon Schiele Museum – Tulln. Opened on the centenary of his birth (12th June 1990).

The museum is housed in what was formerly the gaol. Schiele was imprisoned here in 1912.

Statue of Schiele outside the Egon Schiele Museum, overlooking the Danube

Schiele’s presence around Vienna – advertising the Leopold Museum

The atrium of the Leopold Museum, Vienna – opened 2001

Leopold Museum, Vienna – the world’s largest collection of Schiele’s paintings and drawings

Neulengbach where Schiele lived with his girlfriend/model Wally

Bust of Schiele in the centre of Neulengbach – erected in 2016

Once invisible, he even has his own Platz now

The courthouse in Neulengbach where Schiele was confined and sentenced

The courthouse now contains a small museum

The orange on the cell bed (brought by Wally to paint and eat)

Orange on cell bed

gaol guitar door

Schiele’s cell

I had a moment in here – the whole place was empty

Death mask in a cell

Schiele in cell (he’s on a plastic bag)

He’s now got a Place and a Street

on the way to his studio

And Wally’s even got her own lane

Schiele’s road – Au

A neighbouring house of the same period

Site of Schiele’s house & studio – it was torn down in the 60s(?)

Schiele & Wally’s place (photographed 1963)

Schiele’s house/studio

Captured for posterity by art historian Alessandra Comini

After the cell experience, Schiele left Neulengbach

In 1912 he moved to a studio in suburban Vienna (Hietzing) at 101 Hietzinger Hauptstraße

I happened to be staying in Hietzing by chance on this visit – beschert

Schiele’s studio is on the top floor

101 Hietzinger Hauptstraße

Treading in the great man’s footsteps

He spotted his future wife (Edith) in the building opposite where she lived with her parents and sister

The Harms’ apartment – 114 Hietzinger Hauptstraße, Vienna

Both Edith and Egon died in this building in 1918

Edith & Adele’s view of Egon’s place

A letter from Egon to sisters Edith and Adele Harms 1914

Schiele’s mentor, Gustav Klimt, is buried nearby in Hietzing Cemetery

Headstone designed by Josef Hoffmann – Cemetery Hietzing, Vienna, Group 5, Grave #194

Klimt’s The Kiss in Schloss Belvedere, Vienna

Truly magical

 

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