Büste des Voltaire

c. 1905

His father’s death and the family’s ruin

When Schiele was 14 his father died of syphilis, and the family, which had been fairly wealthy, was left impoverished: before his death the father, in a fit of insanity, had burned the railway stocks that would have supported them. His elder sister Melanie, hired as a ticket clerk at the local station, became the sole breadwinner.

after 1905

His uncle Czihaczek’s guardianship and the tutor Strauch

Schiele and his sister Gerti became wards of Leopold Czihaczek, the husband of their aunt and also a railway official: he wanted his nephew to follow in his footsteps but, recognising Schiele’s talent for drawing, allowed him a tutor, the artist Ludwig Karl Strauch. Later the uncle renounced his guardianship and Schiele depended on his mother’s support until it was cut off because his sister Melanie objected to the expense, which caused a rift in the family.

1906

The School of Arts and Crafts, then the Academy

In 1906 Schiele entered the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Vienna, where Gustav Klimt had once studied, and tried his hand at sculpture, making small clay and plaster pieces; within his first year, at the insistence of several faculty members, he was sent to the more traditional Academy of Fine Arts.

1906–1909

The Academy: the strict Griepenkerl

Schiele’s main teacher at the Academy was Christian Griepenkerl, a painter whose strict doctrine and ultra-conservative style frustrated and dissatisfied Schiele so much that he left after three years.

1907

Gustav Klimt: mentor and patron

In 1907 Schiele sought out Gustav Klimt, who generously mentored younger artists: Klimt bought his drawings, offered to exchange them for some of his own, arranged models for him and introduced him to potential patrons and to the Wiener Werkstätte. Schiele’s earliest works of 1907–1909 show strong similarities with Klimt’s, as well as influences from Art Nouveau.

1908

The first exhibition, in Klosterneuburg

In 1908 Schiele’s first exhibition took place in the town of Klosterneuburg near Vienna, where he had earlier attended school.