Rudolf Leopold (1925–2010)

The introduction, biography, and reflective essay that preface the sketches and paintings are rather aggrandizing, elevating Kubin's genius artificially and attempting to mythologize his work. It's a strange move because he doesn't seem to need any such artifice: For one thing, when he was in a good mood, he aggrandized and mythologized himself plenty--the guy had an ego as outrageous as his neurotic pessimism, and he was prone to lavish, fictionalized embellishments of his own biography. But more importantly, his work is already genius enough without any excess praise piled on; it's like the authors of these various introductory materials felt it necessary to sell the idea of Kubin, but Kubin's art speaks plenty loudly for itself. Which is why, if I could, I'd actually give this 3.5 stars, because for all the faults of the front matter, the artwork here is brilliant. Disturbed and often unnerving, but fascinating and beautiful. His is truly involving art, abosrbing you into a distorted and sometimes demented world view that anyone would likely recognize from their childhood nightmares, like a weird philosophical blend of Charles Addams and Maurice Sendak, but in execution bearing more of the the darkness of H.R. Giger and the twisted whimsy of Mark Ryden (who, for me, actually reads like a latter-day Kubin). If you buy this book, skip the front matter, but I do highly recommend this or any other collection of Kubin's work, because his vision is unsettling but moving, and his execution is unconventional but excellent.… (mais)

A chronological presentation of Egon Shielle’s landscape paintings, commencing with works produced when he was only sixteen. Each painting is reproduced in colour on one page with brief informative explanatory notes on the facing page, and invariably with additional photographs usually of the actual scene depicted in the painting, and occasionally Shielle’s own preliminary sketches. The book concludes with a brief illustrated biography, and bibliography. A most informative and beautifully illustrated publication with text kept to a minimum and free from pompous waffle.… (mais)

Egon Schiele (June 12, 1890 – October 31, 1918) was an Austrian painter. He was a protégé of Gustav Klimt, and as such his early work showed strong Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil influences, though very quickly, his use of strong expressive lines, twisted body shapes and unusual colour combinations became closer in style to that of the Expressionists. During his lifetime, Schiele was accused of producing pornographic imagery, and there's no denying that he had a fixation on the female sex. Partly because of this, his work was not given full recognition until much later on in the 20th century. Rudolph Leopold began collecting art in the 1950's, including works by Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka, but he especially favoured works by Egon Schiele, which could be had inexpensively at the time. The Austrian government purchased his extensive collection in 1994 and the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which was opened to the public in 2001, now houses the world's largest permantent collection of Schiele's work. The book features works from Schiele's student days in 1907 to 1918, the year of Schiele's death during the flu pandemic. The works are arranged chronologically, with large, high-quality reproductions, each accompanied with notes by Leopold, and there is a short biography of Schiele's life at the end of the book.

I've only become recently interested in this artist. I re-discovered him at the museum bookstore during a trip to view an exhibition of the work of Otto Dix. Schiele's work is disturbing. He was fascinated with death and distressing imagery—even his landscapes and cityscapes can be unbearably oppressive—but I was drawn by the many drawings and watercolours in the book which show Schiele's undeniable strengths as a draughtsman and bold colourist, which are of interest to me as an art student. I was only able to look at this book a few pages at a time, and while I found some of Leopold's commentary interesting, it suffered from a lack of objectivity, as Leopold was likely one of the artist's biggest fans. While I still can't be counted among Schiele's strongest supporters, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in influential early 20th century art.… (mais)