Standing Nude, Facing Right

Art Historical Context

Step into the raw intensity of Egon Schiele *Standing Nude, Facing* (1918), a striking charcoal drawing on paper measuring 18¼ × 11⅝ inches, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern and Contemporary Art department. Created just a year before Schiele's untimely death at age 28 from the Spanish flu pandemic, this work captures the Austrian Expressionist's signature style: angular, elongated figures that twist with psychological depth and emotional urgency. Schiele, a protégé of Gustav Klimt and a key figure in early 20th-century Viennese modernism, pushed boundaries with his unflinching depictions of the female nude. Amid the turmoil of World War I's final year, his drawings rejected classical ideals of beauty, favoring distorted poses and stark lines to convey vulnerability and erotic tension. The charcoal medium shines here—bold, smudged strokes evoke immediacy and spontaneity, a hallmark of his draftsmanship that influenced later modern artists. Bequeathed to the Met in 1982 by Scofield Thayer, this piece exemplifies Schiele's cultural impact: challenging taboos around the body and pioneering Expressionism's focus on inner truth over outward perfection. A poignant reminder of human fragility, it invites visitors to ponder the artist's feverish creativity in a time of global upheaval.

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, ...