Reclining Nude
1918
Medium
Crayon on paper
Dimensions
11 5/8 × 18 3/16 in. (29.6 × 46.2 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Modern and Contemporary Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982
Accession Number
1984.433.310
Tags
Art Historical Context
Egon Schiele's *Reclining Nude* (1918), a crayon drawing on paper measuring 11 5/8 × 18 3/16 inches, captures the artist's final year of life, just months before his untimely death from the Spanish flu pandemic at age 28. As a leading figure in Austrian Expressionism and the Vienna Secession movement—alongside mentor Gustav Klimt—Schiele pushed boundaries with his raw, psychologically charged depictions of the human form. This work exemplifies his mature style, created amid the turmoil of World War I, when he served briefly in the army before focusing intensely on his art. Schiele's mastery s...
About the Artist
Egon Schiele · 1890–1918
Egon Schiele (1890-1918) stands as one of the most provocative and psychologically penetrating artists of early twentieth-century European modernism. Born in Tulln an der Donau, Austria-Hungary, Schiele's brief but intensely productive life ended tragically at age twenty-eight when he and his pregnant wife Edith succumbed to the Spanish flu pandemic, mere days apart. Despite his truncated career, ...