(Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)
Woman Reclining on Her Side with Upturned Skirt/ Seitlich liegendes Mädchen, mit hochgestreiftem Rock, signed, dated Egon Schiele 1912, watercolour, pencil on paper, 31.6 x 48.6 cm, framed

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London 1998, p. 471, No. D. 1070, with ill.

Exhibited:
“German and Austrian Expressionism”, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago, March 10 – April 30 1978, cat. no. 29
“Selezione 4: Una Collezione di Disegni”, Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan,
16 June 1980, cat. no. 1
“Secessione Romana 1913–1916: XI Quadriennale di Roma, Roma 1987,
cat. no. 200
“German Expressionism”, Fiorello Urbinati Gallery, Los Angeles,
July 16 – Sept. 16 1988, no. 32
Il disegno del nostro secolo, Fondazione Mazzotta, Milano 1994, p. 73,
no. 11 (with ill)

Provenance:
Sotheby’s New York, 16 May 1979, lot 64
Graphic Art Collector’s Association, Milan
Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 26 June 1981, lot 59
Galleria Philippe Daverio, Milan
Private Collection, Italy – acquired from the above

“... Ich glaube, daß es keine ‘moderne’ Kunst gibt,
daß es nur Kunst gibt, und die ist immerwährend”
Egon Schiele

... “Public opinion” howled in outrage. Some examples:
“... The Viennese Schiele is unhealthy and incomprehensible to our tastes” (Fränkischer Kurier, 1911)
“... of course our Kokoschka and Schiele are poor devils, ... but we can see much more clearly what they cannot.” (Neue Freie Presse, 1912)
“...Egon Schiele, whose aberrations are among the most disgusting that we have ever seen in Vienna...” and so on ad infinitum.

Arthur Roessler was the first critic who courageously stood up for Schiele against the masses. He wrote an enthusiastic article about Schiele’s art in the “Arbeiter-Zeitung” (1909)
Gradually, the tone of popular opinion changed. Reluctantly and with much criticism, his detractors had to admit that an artist existed who followed a categorical imperative of his spirit and could not be measured by conventional standards. That he could not be blamed for the “perversions” of his portraits and nudes, for they simply represented the truth of the models, that the distortions and abnormal expressions were just the faithful image of the bodies and minds of the people of the time. Seen through the inner eye of a highly perceptive artist and shaped by a hand that projects lines and colours into the finite with a demonic kind of certainty. …
From: Das Egon Schiele Buch, by Fritz Karpfen, Vienna 1921