Klimt / Schiele: Drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna

See rare and fragile drawings by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, offering intimate insights into their artistic relationship and differing creative processes. This extraordinary collaboration with the Albertina Museum in Vienna marks the centenary of both artists’ deaths.

1918 was a seismic year in Vienna. As the Austro-Hungarian Empire crumbled, an intense period of creative vitality drew to an end with the deaths of two of its foremost artists. One was the preeminent and strikingly modern painter of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Gustav Klimt; the other the young, scandalous and prodigiously talented Egon Schiele.

Nearly 30 years apart in age, both shared a mutual admiration of each other’s talents. Drawing from life was fundamental for them both, from the origins of their academic training to their unconventional depictions of the human body. Yet, their work is decidedly different in appearance and effect: Klimt’s drawings are largely delicate and monochrome, conceived as preparatory studies with sinuous outlines in black charcoal or pencil, while Schiele’s drawings appear boldly expressive, with jagged contours and vibrant colours, often created as independent works. Both artists deployed blunt naturalism, disquieting emotional resonances, and disorienting omissions to challenge conventions and explore new ideas of modernity, subjectivity and the erotic.

Klimt / Schiele: Drawings is a unique opportunity to see some of the 20th century’s most important works on paper – among them Klimt’s sketches for his seminal Beethoven Frieze, and unflinching self-portraits by Schiele – which due to their delicacy will not see the light of day again for many years. In around 100 portraits, allegories, landscapes and erotic nudes, prepare to encounter these two icons of early Modernism at their most raw and revealing.