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Lot Essay
Executed with a deft combination of gouache, watercolor and pencil, Egon Schiele’s Schwarzes Mädchen of 1911 demonstrates the stylistic developments that took place in the artist’s work over the course of this important year. At this time, Schiele had begun to move away from the more angular depictions of the human figure towards a more delicate, measured approach to form. This shift was due in part to Schiele’s embrace of watercolor. Honing his mastery of this medium, Schiele was able to play with striking contrasts of pigment to gain increasingly expressive effects. As the present work shows, Schiele played with the visual juxtaposition between the woman’s voluminous black skirt, applied with soft strokes of translucent black pigment, the dense curls of her thick tumbling hair, and the soft delicacy of her bare torso and chest.
The striking dark-haired figure in Schwarzes Mädchen clearly captured Schiele’s imagination—she was the protagonist for a small series of works on paper, one of which is now in The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and another in the Leopold Museum, Vienna (Kallir, nos. 858-861), as well as an oil painting, to which the present work directly relates (Kallir, no. 200; present location unknown). While two of these works feature the woman in a more sexually explicit pose, lying backwards, with her arms and skirt raised, and staring out towards the viewer, in Schwarzes Mädchen, Schiele has depicted her in a moment of introspection. She appears seated and at ease, no longer performing for a viewer—or the artist—gazing out of the picture plane with what seems to be an air of melancholy, as if lost in contemplation.
Over the course of 1911 Schiele began executing bolder, more erotic works. At this time, he had recently begun a relationship with Wally Neuzil. She was not only an important model for the artist, but her presence in his life affected his depictions of women more broadly. As a result of this relationship, Schiele’s awareness and understanding of women changed. His depictions became both more sexually, as well as psychologically charged, as if Schiele was presenting the appearance of the model together with something of her mood and personality, as well as his own feelings towards her, in the same work. This complexity of feeling and emotion is demonstrated in Schwarzes Mädchen. Her gaze remains inscrutable, leaving the viewer to ponder the narrative surrounding her.
The way in which Schiele depicted his female subjects was inspired, in part, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose work he had first seen two years before he executed the present Schwarzes Mädchen, in 1909. While Lautrec’s adept use of watercolor, gouache and pencil was shared by Schiele, it was the Post-Impressionist’s unflinching depictions of women and intriguing explorations of sexuality which had the most lasting effect on the young Schiele. As Otto Benesch has written, Lautrec had “made an enormous impression on Schiele through his mercilessly bitter representation, through his investigation of the female psyche” (quoted in F. Whitford, Egon Schiele, London, 1981, p. 60). Schwarzes Mädchen, which pictures the female figure in a state of undress and in what appears to be a moment of private repose, appears closely related to Lautrec’s own depictions of performers at rest.
The striking dark-haired figure in Schwarzes Mädchen clearly captured Schiele’s imagination—she was the protagonist for a small series of works on paper, one of which is now in The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and another in the Leopold Museum, Vienna (Kallir, nos. 858-861), as well as an oil painting, to which the present work directly relates (Kallir, no. 200; present location unknown). While two of these works feature the woman in a more sexually explicit pose, lying backwards, with her arms and skirt raised, and staring out towards the viewer, in Schwarzes Mädchen, Schiele has depicted her in a moment of introspection. She appears seated and at ease, no longer performing for a viewer—or the artist—gazing out of the picture plane with what seems to be an air of melancholy, as if lost in contemplation.
Over the course of 1911 Schiele began executing bolder, more erotic works. At this time, he had recently begun a relationship with Wally Neuzil. She was not only an important model for the artist, but her presence in his life affected his depictions of women more broadly. As a result of this relationship, Schiele’s awareness and understanding of women changed. His depictions became both more sexually, as well as psychologically charged, as if Schiele was presenting the appearance of the model together with something of her mood and personality, as well as his own feelings towards her, in the same work. This complexity of feeling and emotion is demonstrated in Schwarzes Mädchen. Her gaze remains inscrutable, leaving the viewer to ponder the narrative surrounding her.
The way in which Schiele depicted his female subjects was inspired, in part, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose work he had first seen two years before he executed the present Schwarzes Mädchen, in 1909. While Lautrec’s adept use of watercolor, gouache and pencil was shared by Schiele, it was the Post-Impressionist’s unflinching depictions of women and intriguing explorations of sexuality which had the most lasting effect on the young Schiele. As Otto Benesch has written, Lautrec had “made an enormous impression on Schiele through his mercilessly bitter representation, through his investigation of the female psyche” (quoted in F. Whitford, Egon Schiele, London, 1981, p. 60). Schwarzes Mädchen, which pictures the female figure in a state of undress and in what appears to be a moment of private repose, appears closely related to Lautrec’s own depictions of performers at rest.