Post war, he dreamt of a new society in which artists could help rebuild the fractured world around them. The war years and marriage to the more socially acceptable Edith Harms heightened his maturity. A concerned Klimt introduced him to clients who provided new work as a portrait painter. The prison sentence seems to have been a turning point for Schiele, who would never again paint adolescent nudes. In court the abduction charge was dropped but the watercolour, as it had been clearly visible to the youth who visited him, led to a sentence of three days’ imprisonment on the latter charge. After questioning, Schiele was charged with abduction of a minor and incitement to debauchery. When police came to the house they confiscated a nude watercolour and 125 other works. Gossip spread and when he was discovered sketching a young girl naked in the garden he was forced to leave town.įurther scandal followed in Neulengbach when a young girl ran away from home and sought refuge with Egon and Wally, provoking her father to have Schiele charged with abduction. The youth of the town flocked to them and Schiele used the opportunity to draw the young bodies that so fascinated him. The couple immediately raised eyebrows and Schiele did nothing to dispel the attention.
His stylistic experiments now progressed rapidly but the tortured, contorted figures which emerged found little appreciation in Vienna.įrustrated by the response to his work Schiele sought refuge in the small town of Krumau, accompanied by his partner Wally, a former model of Klimt’s.