Egon Schiele is a member of the club of great artists who died prematurely, incompletely creating and sharing their beauty and wisdom: Raphael, age 37; Mozart, 35; Shelley, 29; and, Keats, 25, to name just a few.

Schiele was born in 1890 in a small town near Vienna. He described his great grandfather as a "jurist."  Schiele's father, a railroad employee, was a constant sketcher. So too was Egon by age 10, and possibly even younger. He was bored at elementary school, a distraction from art, and at age 16 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, being the youngest student in his class.

Traditional art instruction also bored him, and after some two and a half years, threatened with expulsion, he left. But by this time, age 18 of 19, he found his artistic independence. He was moving towards an aesthetics of expressionism, a high octane of psychological and emotional content, exaggerated poses and brush strokes, combined with a style that emphasized line and contour and the relationship between the figure and a background of colored but empty space.

As such, Schiele did not paint the female nude; rather, he painted naked women in the raw!

While Schiele was self-effacing in public, his private life was increasingly bohemian and demonstrative. He obviously enjoyed the mature female body, but he also had an affection for children, and soon this led to trouble with the law. In 1911, living in a rural community, Schiele was observed painting a nude underaged girl (the age of consent was 14) in his garden; he was evicted by his landlord and in essence drummed out of town. Moving to another small town, he continued to make friends with children and paint them in the nude.

In April 1912, a father of a girl filed a police complaint alleging kidnapping and rape. When the police went to Schiele's residence, which he voluntarily allowed them to enter and look about, they found depictions of nude female youngsters, and a third offense against public morality was added. Within days, Schiele received a summons to appear in municipal court.

While the official court record does not exist, and various  commentaries by friends about this episode are ambiguous and conflicting, it is very likely that the following occurred: 1) Schiele timely appeared voluntarily with counsel in court; 2) he was not initially arrested, but held in custody to prevent communication with the complaining father's daughter (a perversion of CPL Article 620, securing attendance of a material witness); 3) the young lady told the authorities she was not kidnapped or raped, and these charges were dropped; 4) he must have at some point been officially charged because he was found guilty of the offense against public morality, and he was fined and sentenced to time served plus three additional days; and, 5) Schiele was incarcerated for a total of 24 days, and when discharged, he was psychologically traumatized.

In February 1915, Schiele was rejected for military service due to a congenitally weak heart. Some four months later, deteriorating military conditions led to another examination, and he was declared fit for limited service. He spent most of his military life guarding Russian prisoners, an experience that stirred compassionate feelings.

Schiele's incarceration and military service understandably had a profound influence on him and his art. There is a new symbolist content, a spiritual seeking, a humanistic expression and a new background of abstract shapes.

"Death and Maiden" (1915), considered by some as his masterpiece, powerfully expresses the sublime longing of a man and woman, for whatever reason, for human touch.

Schiele married in 1915. Two years later, his career exploded in success. Postwar Austria was economically stressed but socially and artistically more tolerant. Commissions poured in, he became a society portraitist, sales came easily. For the first time in his life he could live as he had dreamed.

In fall 1918, the flu pandemic raged in Austria. Schiele's wife, pregnant with their second child, died. Four days later, Egon Schiele died. He was 28.

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David Lenefsky practices law in Manhattan. He is a resource in art history for The Young President's Organization.