"Female Nude with Stockings", 1912

During his short life, Schiele created an extensive oeuvre. His drawings are mindful of old masters but still extremely modern. The pitiless depiction of man, often naked, the radicalism of the poses and the contortions of the bodies own a singular power. Like no other draughtsman, Schiele was able to lend a maximum of spatiality to a body with just a few strokes. Promoted by Gustav Klimt, he had his breakthrough in March 1918, at the exhibition of the Vienna Secession. He became one of the many victims of the Spanish flu in October of the same year at the age of 28.