Egon Schiele
Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant
Leopold Museum, Vienna
Egon Schiele and Jenny Saville at Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is the first museum to exhibit the work of Egon Schiele (1890–1918) together with paintings by the contemporary British artist Jenny Saville (b. 1970). 10 October 2014 to 25 January 2015.]]>
Source: Kunsthaus Zürich
While previous exhibitions have mostly placed Egon Schiele in his historical context, here the aim is to explore similarities and distinctions between his work and that of a contemporary painter. Schiele’s works are presented in a loose chronological sequence within the exhibition, while Saville’s paintings appear in singled out interaction and sometimes in small groups of works or motifs. Each position visibly retains its autonomy. By creating a spacious hanging with formats of vastly differing sizes and rejecting any arrangement based on explicit pairings, curator Oliver Wick sets out to challenge viewers’ perceptions.
Jenny Saville’s paintings should be understood as a process that pushes painting to its limits. As she works, she constantly reviews and reconfigures her many sources, capturing the state of becoming in a way that reaches beyond the human body to depict the essence of painting itself. A graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, Saville achieved her international breakthrough with a solo show at the Saatchi Gallery in 1994. In all, 17 of her paintings and a number of drawings that deal with texture and materiality will be exhibited alongside the Schieles. Despite their usually small format, the 38 paintings and 40 works on paper by Schiele create an impact that is every bit the equal of Saville’s giant creations. Grouped together in selected themes, they reveal an artistic intensity that does not shy away from extremes.
The exhibition features some works that have seldom been lent out before. The Leopold Museum in Vienna has exceptionally agreed to loan Egon Schiele’s ‘Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant’ and the ‘Portrait of Wally Neuzil’ – his companion for many years – which accompanies it. The Kunsthaus is also grateful to the Belvedere, Vienna, for permitting Schiele’s seminal ‘Death and Maiden’ to travel outside Austria for the first time in more than 25 years. The works by Saville come from private collections in Europe and the US.
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Egon Schiele’s women at Richard Nagy London (exhibition, 2011)
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