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Neue Galerie Graz
Egon Schiele
Stadtende (Häuserbogen III), 1918
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Artist biography
Egon Schiele
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About the artwork
Many paintings by Egon Schiele focus on the South Bohemian town of Český Krumlov, the birthplace of his mother, which he visited time and again. He seems to have been particularly interested in the medieval architecture. Some pictures were painted on location, others were painted from memory in Vienna. But rest your head on your right shoulder and take a closer look at the trees on the right of the picture. No, you don't see any ghosts, there is actually a face hiding here. A portrait on the back of the painting has been known for some time, but it was only in 2011 that the Joanneum's restoration workshop was able to discover that the portrait was actually painted on the front.
All you can see on the back is the colour transfer. The head is hidden behind the trees, the arms have become the rows of houses and the lapel of the suit has become the city wall. A second secret has been revealed: no longer visible today, there is another portrait beneath the layers of colour. Schiele almost certainly painted a preliminary study for the double portrait of his collector Heinrich Benesch and his son Otto. While one man was painted over, the second became the basis for the architecture of the cityscape. How many more paintings here are hiding such secrets?
