An unpublished sketchbook belonging to the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) has surfaced from a private collection. Dating back to 1906 when Schiele enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts where he was to meet his future mentor, Gustave Klimt (1862-1918), the sketchbook contains over 40 never-before-seen works by the artist. The images will be reproduced later this month in Egon Schiele: The Beginning, the first book to explore the expressionist’s early works.
Schiele was an important figurative painter of the 20th century and many of his works are erotically charged and noted for their raw emotional intensity. Schiele’s early sketchbook includes a self-portrait and various landscapes that illustrate his early predilection for the expressive brush strokes and dramatic lines that are now readily associated with his work.
Egon Schiele: The Beginning will also include sketches Schiele completed in 1905 on an old English dictionary. Only one of the dictionary sketches has been exhibited before.
