Rudolf Leopold: Egon Schiele. Paintings – Watercolors – Drawings

17.12.2020

New edition of monumental monograph presented at the Leopold Museum

Elisabeth Leopold presented the new edition of Rudolf Leopold’s Egon Schiele monograph at the
Leopold Museum. “The opus Egon Schiele. Paintings – Watercolors – Drawings first published in 1972 provided a central cornerstone for the exceptional artist Egon Schiele’s world renown,” Elisabeth
Leopold emphasized at the book launch. The impressive work, weighing several kilos, is available as
of now in a revised edition.

The first edition of Rudolf Leopold’s monograph Egon Schiele. Paintings – Watercolors – Drawings
went out of print shortly after its release in 1972 and for years could only be bought second-hand at
high prices. Elisabeth Leopold made it her mission to reissue the publication reflecting the life’s work
of her husband, who passed away in 2010. The couple lived together for around 60 years and
compiled the world’s most extensive and important collection of works by Egon Schiele. In 1994 they
founded the Leopold Museum Private Foundation together with the Republic of Austria and with the
support of the Austrian National Bank. Built by the State, the Leopold Museum opened to the public
in 2001 and will celebrate its 20-year-anniversary in the upcoming year.

The present publication completes what Prof. Rudolf Leopold (1925 – 2010) had begun himself but
never finished – an updated new edition. Following the publication of the first edition, the author
and collector kept revising his text, and his handwritten annotations have been incorporated into the
reissued version.

The volume’s original graphic design, created by the eminent Austrian artist Walter Pichler (1936–
2012), was adopted for the new edition almost unchanged. Wherever possible, sources for Rudolf
Leopold’s text and the whereabouts of the works have been added in the book’s illustration section.
The pictorial material has been updated, color-matched several times and printed in the highest
quality.

The catalogue raisonné of Schiele’s paintings now consistently features illustrations, allowing readers
to visually experience the chronology of the artist’s oeuvre compiled by Rudolf Leopold. All
provenance data has been brought up to date according to latest research, with recourse to the work
of Schiele expert Jane Kallir.

Rudolf Leopold’s monograph has lost none of its relevance since its first publication 48 years ago. His
intellectual and empathetic understanding of Schiele’s work, coupled with his analysis of the stylistic
evolution of individual periods of the artist’s oeuvre, is to this day considered a milestone in Schiele
research. In the early 1970s, Egon Schiele’s work was yet to experience the international renown it
enjoys today, and in Austria, too, he was appreciated mostly for his late oeuvre. It is thanks to Rudolf
Leopold that Schiele’s explosive expressionism characteristic of the period from 1910 to 1914 was
reappraised and acknowledged for its ground-breaking impact.

By the time the book was first published, Rudolf Leopold already had 20 years of experience as a
collector and researcher. He met many people who had been personally acquainted with Schiele and
was thus able to compile valuable accounts by contemporary witnesses.
An important part of his research involved traveling to the sites where Schiele had created his
paintings. The results of this longstanding research are reflected in an impressive motif reference.
This reference was a sensation at the time, and still represents an important part of the publication
and an essential element of Schiele research.

The book
Rudolf Leopold (1925 – 2010) recognized Egon Schiele’s preeminent significance for 20th-century art
history in the 1950s. He was decisively responsible for the artist being accorded his due place in art
history and public perception. The 1972 monograph presented Schiele’s paintings, watercolors and
drawings in a chronological context and, referencing his motifs as well as studies, sketches and
documents, afforded a comprehensive overview of the artist’s oeuvre. The current edition, which
features a revised catalogue raisonné, pays homage to Rudolf Leopold’s life-time achievement and
was edited by his wife Elisabeth Leopold, who in a few months will celebrate her 95th birthday.

The author
When the young medical student Rudolf Leopold, carried away by the visionary power of great
artworks, decided to surround his life with art, he discovered the works of the then little-known
artist Egon Schiele. This opened up a new chapter in art history. The young collector embarked on a
meticulous quest, carefully selecting especially the exceptionally exciting main works of Schiele’s
early period for his collection. Over the course of 40 years, this compilation would grow to reflect
“Schiele and his time”, or “Vienna 1900”. Within this setting, Schiele’s works make up the core and
sublimely thrilling aspect of the Leopold Collection. In this book they are presented in their entirety.

Egon Schiele. Paintings – Watercolors – Drawings
Published with Hirmer Verlag, Munich
Author: Rudolf Leopold | revised second edition, ed. by Elisabeth Leopold, with the collaboration of
Stefan Kutzenberger, Sonja Niederacher and Michael Wladika
Cloth-bound with book jacket and ribbon, dimensions: 30 × 30 cm
736 pages, 931 illustrations
ISBN 978-3-7774-3472-8 (German edition)
ISBN 978-3-7774-3469-8 (English edition)
Available at the Leopold Museum Shop and specialist bookshops
Subscription rate for orders until 31st March 2021: 77.10 Euros (German edition only)
Retail price from 1st April 2021: 100.80 Euros (German and English edition)

www.leopoldmuseum.org
www.hirmerverlag.de
https://www.hirmerverlag.de/de/titel-2-2/egon_schiele_werkverzeichnis-1995/
https://www.hirmerverlag.de/uk/titel-3-3/egon_schiele_catalogue_raisonne-1996/
www.hirmerpublishers.com

For further information, please contact:
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung
Mag. Klaus Pokorny and Veronika Werkner, BA
Press/Public Relations
0043 1 525 70 - 1507 and 154
presse@leopoldmuseum.org

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