Portrait of Wally
Oil on panel
13 x 15.7”
1912
Egon Schiele (June 12 1890 - October 31 1918) was a Viennese artist who painted mostly self-portraits and portraits of women, all with a distinct style that made his portraits appear boney, and sometimes sick.
His most notorious muse was Wally Neuriz, who was his lover and muse for about four years. The image I included is the first one he created when their relationship became a serious affair. “She’s not just a model. She looks back. She motivated his self-reflection, and was a catalyst for his work,” says Diethard Leopold, son of the late Rudolf Leopold, who owns much of this collection. Although it was difficult to find any statements from Schiele himself, his and Wally's relationship is such a perfect and tragic story of artist and muse and I had to include it. Their story ends sadly though, because he left her for another woman after she was loyal for many years. She died soon after of scarlet fever.
Portrait of Wally was later stolen by the Nazis during WWII and caused many lawsuits later on over who was the rightful owner of this painting. The story has now been made into a feature length film.
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