Women play lots of roles in history, but sometimes it feels like there are only two: the Madonna and the whore. In fin de siècle Europe these were undoubtedly the most prevalent—the chaste and innocent bride versus the street-dwelling prostitute. Most men had both. Egon Schiele died when he was just twenty-eight, three days after his wife, Edith, passed away— both died in the 1918 flu pandemic. During his short life, he sketched and painted dozens of women, mostly of the latter breed. These images are what we know him for, kinky nudes that verge on pornography, even for today. Egon Schiele’s Women (Prestel, $85) is Jane Kallir’s second publication of the artist’s work, the previous being the first Schiele catalogue raisonné: Egon Schiele: The Complete Works. Egon Schiele’s Women is a great big heavy art book with two hundred and sixty-five illustrations, some surprisingly graphic but all delectable. Kallir highlights his female models, beginning with Schiele’s mother and sisters, prostitutes, lovers, and eventually Edith and her sister. The book traces Schiele’s artistic development, showing his influences—Klimt, Munch, Rodin—and culminating with the sensual portraits that are his great contribution to the female nude.
