Gustav Klimt in the 1 Garden of His Studio at Josefstädter Straße, 1912 Egon Schiele, Poster for the 49Th 2 51 Secession Exhibition, 1918

Home , Beethoven Frieze, The Kiss (Klimt)

Large Print Klimt / Schiele Drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna The Sackler Wing of galleries Rooms 1, 2 and 3

Do not remove from gallery Klimt/Schiele Drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna Royal Academy of Arts The Sackler Wing of Galleries 4th November 2018 to 3rd February 2019

Contents Page 5 Room 1 - Introduction

Page 20 Room 2 - Klimt’s Process

Page 33 Room 3 - Schiele’s Process

Supported by Ömer Koç

Supported by Jake and Hélène Marie Shafran

The production of RA large print guides is generously supported by Robin Hambro The Sackler Wing of Galleries You are in room 1

4 2 3

1 6 5

Audio Desk Exit to room 2

2 51

1 100

=showcase Exhibition entrance

3 Multimedia tour room 1

Main commentary

Descriptive commentary

100 Introduction

Moritz Nähr, Gustav Klimt in the 1 Garden of His Studio at Josefstädter Straße, 1912 Egon Schiele, Poster for the 49th 2 51 Secession Exhibition, 1918

4 Room 1 100 Klimt/Schiele Drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna When Egon Schiele (1890–1918) moved to Vienna in 1906 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, he encountered a city caught between the traditional and the modern. Convinced of his own talent and the importance of the artist’s role in society, Schiele looked to the example of Austria’s most famous artist.

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), some twenty- HLJKW\HDUV6FKLHOH¶VVHQLRUKDG¿UVWIRXQG acclaim in the late 1880s painting complex ceiling schemes for grand buildings of Vienna’s Ringstraße (the boulevard that encircles the old city centre). (continued over) 5 His artistic trajectory led him to reject the conventional style of these public FRPPLVVLRQVEHFRPLQJWKHOHDGLQJ¿JXUH of an avant-garde that embraced the idea of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ – the total work of art. Architecture, sculpture, painting, design and decorative arts, freed from any hierarchy, would function together in harmony.

Drawing unites all these arts. For both Klimt and Schiele it was a fundamental daily activity, especially drawing from life. A medium of spontaneity and creativity, it also proved central to their artistic dialogue.

,WLVXQFOHDUZKHQWKHWZRDUWLVWV¿UVWPHW in person. Schiele later claimed that it was in 1907, but given that he was an unknown student at the time, this is rather unlikely. Klimt’s presentation at the 1908 Kunstschau (International Art Show) –

6 including his iconic Golden Period work ‘The Kiss’ – proved a revelation for Schiele. Between November 1910 and January 1911 they visited one another’s studios several times and exchanged drawings.

When Klimt died of pneumonia following a stroke in February 1918, Schiele visited the morgue to draw his body. On 31 October, Schiele succumbed to the LQÀXHQ]DSDQGHPLF

On the centenary of their deaths, some one hundred works on paper gathered here reveal Klimt and Schiele as two of the most innovative draughtsmen of the twentieth century.

Further biographical and contextual information is DYDLODEOHLQWKHJDOOHU\JXLGHOHDÀHWDQGDXGLRWRXU

All works courtesy of the Albertina Museum, Vienna, unless otherwise stated.

7 Room 1 list of works (clockwise in order of hang)

Moritz Nähr (1859–1945) *XVWDY.OLPWLQ3UR¿OH 8 July 1909 Photograph

Moritz Nähr 1 (1859–1945) Gustav Klimt in the Garden of His Studio at Josefstädter Straße 1912

Photograph

8 Johannes Fischer (1888–1955) Egon Schiele in Front of the Painting ‘Shrines in the Forest’ 1915

Photograph

Johannes Fischer (1888–1955) Egon Schiele in Front of a Mirror, Holding a Cigarette in His Hand 1914

Photograph

9 Gustav Klimt Studies of Romeo Reclining and D0DQLQ3UR¿O3HUGXIRU ‘Shakespeare’s Theatre’ 1886–87

Pencil and black chalk with white heightening on paper

,Q.OLPWUHFHLYHGKLV¿UVWPDMRU public commission: the decoration of Vienna’s new Burgtheater stairwell ceilings with theatrical scenes.

The realistic precision and psychological UH¿QHPHQWRIKLVVWXGLHVIRUWKHKHDGRI the dead Romeo and a spectator seen from behind demonstrate Klimt’s exceptional skill as a draughtsman.

Rendered three-dimensional by intricate shading and highlights, these drawings UHÀHFWWKHKLJKO\SROLVKHGVW\OHDQGLOOXVRU\ GHSWKRIWKH¿QLVKHGSDLQWLQJV

10 Gustav Klimt Study for ‘Shakespeare’s Theatre’ 1886–87

Black chalk with white heightening on paper

Egon Schiele Reclining Female Nude 1908

Pencil and chalk on paper

This drawing, probably made in the life- drawing class of Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts, already demonstrates Schiele’s departure from the academic drawing style.

(continued over) 11 Dispensing with any modelling or details ZLWKLQWKHFRQWRXUVRIWKH¿JXUHKH emphasises the decorative-ornamental line practised by Klimt and the Secessionists.

Egon Schiele Stylised Foliage and Blossoms 1908

Pencil and black and coloured chalk on packing paper

As a student, Schiele was strongly LQÀXHQFHGE\µ-XJHQGVWLO¶ *HUPDQDQG Viennese Art Nouveau), of which Klimt had been a well- known advocate since the turn of the century.

Here, Schiele renders his subject in a ÀDWWHQHGGHFRUDWLYHGHVLJQVFKHPHJLYLQJ equal prominence to both the foreground and background. 12 Egon Schiele The Painter Anton Faistauer 1909

Pencil, coloured crayon and gouache on packing paper

This early portrait of Schiele’s friend Anton Faistauer (1887–1930), a fellow painter, reveals some striking resemblances to Klimt’s work from his Golden Period.

It replicates the typically Secessionist square format and includes an area of decorative pattern on the armchair.

The Secession The Secession was one of a number of artistic groups with which Klimt and Schiele were involved over the course of their careers. (continued over) 13 Founded in 1897 under the motto ‘To the age its art, to art its freedom’, with Klimt as president, the Secession aimed to rejuvenate Austria’s visual arts.

The group established links with international modernist artists through independent exhibitions and their journal, ‘Ver Sacrum’ (1897–1903). Secession members produced posters for these exhibitions; Klimt’s design presented here features Athene, the goddess of wisdom, crafts and war.

While rejecting the conservatism of the Academy’s history paintings, the Secessionists were deeply interested in the emotive symbolism of the classical world. Their gleaming white modernist exhibition pavilion, topped with a globe of gilt leaves, was conceived as a ‘temple of art’.

The Secession’s unity was short-lived; disagreements over the commercial representation of artists led Klimt and his supporters to resign in 1905.

14 Klimt continued to organise rival exhibitions LQ9LHQQDVXFKDVWKHLQÀXHQWLDO.XQVWVFKDX of 1908, and to exhibit his work abroad.

Gustav Klimt Poster for the Eighteenth Secession Exhibition ‘Gustav Klimt’ 1903–04

Colour lithograph

Egon Schiele 2 Poster for the 51 Forty-ninth Secession Exhibition 1918

Colour lithograph (continued over) 15 Schiele had little direct involvement with the Secession until he was invited to curate its 49th exhibition.

His poster design depicts Schiele at the head of a table of artists – a chair at the other end, it is said, was left empty for Klimt, who had died the previous month.

&RPSDUHGWR.OLPW¶VUH¿QHGW\SRJUDSK\ Schiele’s design feels almost crude, UHÀHFWLQJKLVFRQWDFWZLWKWKHUDZ aesthetic of Expressionism, which he encountered in Munich in 1912.

Gustav Klimt Design for the Journal ‘Ver Sacrum’ 1897–98

Ink on paper

16 Gustav Klimt Design for the Journal ‘Ver Sacrum’ 1897–98

Ink with white gouache corrections on paper

Showcase captions

Ver Sacrum, special Klimt issue, March 1898

Uncensored poster design by Klimt for the ¿UVW6HFHVVLRQH[KLELWLRQRLOVNHWFKE\ Klimt for ‘Medicine’

(continued over) 17 Showcase captions continued

Ver Sacrum, year-bound copy, 1901

Figure studies by Klimt for ‘Medicine’ (issue 6)

The Albertina Museum, Vienna. On permanent loan from Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, Wien

Ver Sacrum, year-bound copy, 1902

Two installation views from the fourteenth Secession exhibition, with Klimt’s ‘Beethoven Frieze’ on the right-hand page (issue 11)

The Albertina Museum, Vienna. On permanent loan from Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, Wien

18 In its early years the Secession saw an H[WUDRUGLQDU\ÀRZHULQJRIWKHJUDSKLFDUWV manifested especially in the monthly journal ‘Ver Sacrum’ (1898–1903), with its innovative square format.

7KH0DUFKLVVXHRILWV¿UVW\HDUZDV completely dedicated to Klimt. It illustrated VRPHRIKLVPRVWVLJQL¿FDQWVWXGLHV paintings and designs, including the uncensored version of his poster with Theseus and the Minotaur (a metaphor for the Secessionists overcoming the establishment).

Gustav Klimt Design for the Journal ‘Ver Sacrum’ 1898

Colour lithograph

19 The Sackler Wing of Galleries You are in rooms 2 and 3

4 2 3

1 6 5

Audio Desk

4 6 53 Exit to room 4 3 9 52 5

7 8

Entrance =seating from room 1 =showcase

20 Multimedia tour rooms 2 and 3

Main commentary

Descriptive commentary

Gustav Klimt, Sketch for ‘Medicine’, 3 52 Squared for Transfer, c. 1900

4 Gustav Klimt, Study for Poetry, ‘Beethoven Frieze’, 1901

5 Gustav Klimt, Study for ‘The Three Ages of Woman’, 1904-5

6 Egon Schiele, The Cellist, 1910 53

7 Egon Schiele, Chrysanthemums, 1910

8 Egon Schiele, Field Landscape (Kreuzberg near Krumau), 1910

9 Egon Schiele, For Art and for My Loved Ones I Will Gladly Endure to the End!, 1912

21 Room 2 Klimt’s Process Klimt’s drawings usually relate to his painted works. He trained at the Viennese Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts), but his preparatory process echoed that promoted by the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), which Schiele attended.

6WXGLHVRIVSHFL¿FHOHPHQWVFRPSRVLWLRQDO drawings, and sometimes oil sketches would be undertaken. The works in this room reveal different aspects of Klimt’s LQWHQVLYHH[SORUDWLRQRIWKHKXPDQ¿JXUH mostly in respect of two key projects.

In 1894, an increasingly sought-after Klimt received a major state commission to paint three 4.5 × 3 metre allegories of ‘Philosophy’, ‘Medicine’ and ‘Jurisprudence’, known as the ‘Faculty Paintings’, for a new

22 building at the University of Vienna. Working from life with male and female models, Klimt rejected idealised formulas IRUDOOHJRULFDO¿JXUHVLQVWHDGH[SORULQJWKH expressive potential of poses and gestures, even delving into existential states.

The immediacy of drawing was instrumental to Klimt’s emotive invocation of procreation, birth and death in ‘Medicine’, going far beyond the technical procedure of planning a composition. The resultant paintings were deemed entirely inappropriate for their context and caused a public scandal.

Amid this, in 1902 the Secession realised their ambition of a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, with an exhibition dedicated to the composer Beethoven. Klimt’s contribution was a high-level 2.5 × 34 metre frieze WKDWLQÀXHQFHGE\-DSDQHVHDUWPDGH bold use of blank spaces, line and pattern VHHFDVHLQ¿UVWURRP (continued over) 23 The horizontal narrative, which unfolds around four walls, visualised Richard Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Klimt drew upon mythological iconography to depict humankind’s negotiation of temptations in search of happiness. Recent research by Klimt specialist Marian Bisanz-Prakken suggests that in early 1910 Schiele might have seen Klimt’s original ‘Beethoven Frieze’ in storage (temporarily exhibited in Vienna before Schiele lived there), as well as related drawings owned by a prominent mutual patron.

Room 2 list of works (clockwise in order of hang) Gustav Klimt Study for ‘Philosophy’ 1897–98

Black chalk on packing paper

24 Gustav Klimt Studies for the First Version of ‘Medicine’ 1900–01

Red and black chalk on packing paper

Gustav Klimt Three Studies for the Oil Sketch for ‘Medicine’ 1897–98

Black chalk on packing paper

In his numerous studies for ‘Medicine’, Klimt broke with all convention by depicting real, rather than idealised, nudes as an expression of human suffering, thrown to the powers of fate. (continued over) 25 7KHVHYDULDWLRQVRIDÀRDWLQJIHPDOH¿JXUH testify to Klimt’s unremitting search for the right posture to convey a particular feeling.

Gustav Klimt 3 Sketch for ‘Medicine’, 52 Squared for Transfer c. 1900

Black chalk and pencil on paper

Gustav Klimt Studies for the First Version of ‘Medicine’ 1900–01

Black chalk with white heightening on packing paper

26 Gustav Klimt Study for the Three Gorgons, ‘Beethoven Frieze’ 1901

Black chalk on packing paper

Gustav Klimt Study for the Three Gorgons, ‘Beethoven Frieze’ 1901

Black chalk on packing paper

Klimt’s studies for the ‘Beethoven Frieze’ largely rely on pronounced body contours ZLWKQRVKDGLQJ6W\OLVHG¿JXUHVZLWK particular body types allowed Klimt to clearly distinguish different ideas in the narrative. (continued over) 27 In this striking study for the provocative group of the ‘Three Gorgons’, a slender yet sensuous standing nude with dark, wild locks embodies the type of the seductive femme fatale.

Gustav Klimt 4 Study for Poetry, ‘Beethoven Frieze’ 1901

Black chalk on packing paper

28 Gustav Klimt Embracing Couple (Study for ‘This Kiss to the Entire World’, ‘Beethoven Frieze’) 1901

Black chalk on packing paper

The embracing lovers here represent the culmination of the frieze in a realm of ideal happiness, mirroring Friedrich Schiller’s famous ‘Ode To Joy’, which Beethoven LQFRUSRUDWHGLQWRWKHFKRUDO¿QDOHRIKLV Ninth Symphony, and includes the line, “Be embraced, you millions! This kiss to the entire world!”.

29 Gustav Klimt Standing Lovers 1907–08

Pencil, red crayon and gold paint on paper

The Albertina Museum, Vienna. The Batliner Collection

7KLVVPDOOKLJKO\¿QLVKHGFRPSRVLWLRQRI two lovers enrobed in ornamental fabric is brought to the fore by Klimt’s exquisite PDWHULDOVRIJUDSKLWHSHQFLORQ¿QH-DSDQ paper embellished with subtle highlights in gold.

Although it recalls his famous painting, ‘The Kiss’, this work is not a preparatory study but a work in its own right, and was likely made as a gift for a patron.

30 Gustav Klimt Seated Woman (Study in the Context of ‘The Three Ages of Woman’) 1904

Black chalk on paper

Klimt’s own mother served as a model for this drawing, one of a number in which he explored the process of aging.

Klimt signed the drawing and therefore considered it a complete work. In contrast to the densely worked face, rapid cursory marks draw our attention to the expanse RIEODQNVSDFHZLWKLQWKH¿JXUH

31 Gustav Klimt 5 Study for ‘The Three Ages of Woman’ 1904–05

Blue crayon on packing paper

Gustav Klimt Studies for ‘Judith II’ (‘Salome’) c. 1908

Pencil on paper

32 Room 3 Schiele’s Process 1910 was the year that Schiele found his unique style. In a letter from November, he wrote: “I went through Klimt until March. Today I think I am entirely different.”

Klimt had included some of Schiele’s somewhat derivative paintings in the 1909 Kunstschau, but by 1911 Schiele had his ¿UVWVRORH[KLELWLRQLQ9LHQQD

$W¿UVWJODQFH6FKLHOH¶VDSSURDFKWR GUDZLQJGLIIHUVVLJQL¿FDQWO\IURP.OLPW¶V His sheets are not studies but completed works, and take in a wider range of subjects. It was in sketchbooks, one of which is presented here, that Schiele worked out ideas for oil paintings. Schiele frequently used watercolour and gouache in his works on paper, but rarely to create three-dimensional modelling.

(continued over) 33 Colour is employed expressively or as a graphic compositional device, similar to Klimt’s division of decorative surface pattern in his paintings. The line remains the organising principle and energetic force of Schiele’s works on paper.

6FKLHOH¶V¿JXUHVDUHFORVHO\REVHUYHGIURP OLIH'H¿QHGE\HPSKDWLFDQGKHLJKWHQHG outlines, they resemble the gaunt, angular bodies of Klimt’s ‘Beethoven Frieze.’

However, instead of selecting types to represent universal themes, Schiele’s drawings scrutinise the individual before him. Unlike Klimt, Schiele could not afford professional models and relied on family, friends, street children and prostitutes.

Isolated in the void of the blank paper, sometimes dramatically cropped, people appear alienated from any context, yet 6FKLHOH¶VVWURQJLGHQWL¿FDWLRQZLWKKLV sitters is evident.

34 Schiele had grown up in rural Austria and had an almost religious passion for nature. From 1911 he frequently left Vienna to paint landscapes, townscapes and draw local people, but his bohemian lifestyle was often unwelcome in these communities.

In 1912 he was imprisoned for 24 days on later dismissed charges of child abduction and seduction. The episode only deepened Schiele’s belief in the sanctity of freedom of artistic expression, as can be seen from the drawings he made while incarcerated.

Room 3 list of works (clockwise in order of hang)

Egon Schiele 6 The Cellist 53 1910

Black crayon and watercolour on packing paper

35 Egon Schiele Female Nude 1910

Pencil, black crayon, watercolour and gouache with white gouache heightening on packing paper

Egon Schiele Female Nude Seen from Behind 1910

Black crayon and watercolour with white gouache heightening on packing paper

Schiele made these two sheets during a single sitting, depicting the same model from different angles, with brutally WUXQFDWHGOLPEV&OHDUO\GH¿QHGRXWOLQHV are further exaggerated by contrasting white gouache heightening, representing

36 what Schiele described as the “inner light shining forth from the bodies”. His use of these ‘auras’ can perhaps be linked to his interest in Theosophy, whose followers believe in the special capacity of some to perceive these spiritual phenomena.

Egon Schiele 0D[.DKUHULQ3UR¿OH 1910

Pencil, black crayon and gouache on packing paper

Egon Schiele Two Sleeping Girls 1911

Pencil on packing paper

37 Egon Schiele Group of Three Girls 1911

Pencil, watercolour and gouache with white gouache heightening on packing paper

Prison Series This series from Neulengbach prison records Schiele’s nerve-racking incarceration. In April 1912, living openly unmarried with his partner and muse Wally Neuzil in Neulengbach, Schiele agreed to take a thirteen-year-old runaway to her grandmother in Vienna, as the girl wished.

+HUIDWKHU¿OHGDSROLFHUHSRUWDQG6FKLHOH was arrested on charges of child abduction, VHGXFWLRQDQGLPPRUDOLW\7KH¿UVWWZR

38 charges were eventually shown to be unfounded but Schiele spent three weeks in prison awaiting trial, at which he was convicted of “public immorality” for “failing WRNHHSHURWLFQXGHVLQDVXI¿FLHQWO\VDIH place”, and served three more days.

In the drawing of the prison corridor, Schiele provides a spatially convincing view of the interior. Yet with the passing days, his depictions of single objects from his cell become more disorienting, his chair and a pitcher presented with no reference to the ÀRRURUZDOOV

Schiele’s despair at the prospect of a twenty-year sentence for a crime he did not commit is conveyed in the self-portrait.

39 Egon Schiele I Feel Not Punished But Cleansed! 20 April 1912