Obsession || Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso *Safe For Telework*

From the Scofield Thayer Collection.

Scofield Thayer (1889-1982) was editor and co-owner of the Dial, a journal that published writing and art by the European and American avant-garde from 1919 to 1926. An aesthete, he was a brilliant abstract thinker and a complex, conflicted personality. In the early 1920s, Thayer underwent psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud in Vienna. While in Europe, he assembled a large collection of some six hundred artworks – mostly works on paper – with staggering speed, acquiring them from artists and dealers in Vienna, London, Paris and Berlin.

While Pablo Picasso’s work had been shown in America, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele were unknown in this country at that time. Both artists were remarkable for their frank portrayals of female nudity and sexuality.

In 1924 a selection from Thayer’s collection was exhibited at a New York gallery and won acclaim, but it found little favour when shown in his native city of Worcester, Massachusetts. Offended by intolerant views toward provocative art, Thayer drew up his will in 1925, leaving his collection to The Met before retreating from public life until his death in 1982.

An exhibition of the bequest has been planned since its arrival at the Museum in 1984, but its diversity, unevenness and vast quantity proved a challenge. While a select group of paintings by artists of the School of Paris is always on view, the light-sensitive watercolours, drawings and prints have been rarely displayed. This exhibition, held on the centenary of the 1918 deaths of Klimt and Schiele, presented these erotic and evocative works together for the first time.

It ran from July through October 2018 at The Met Breuer.

Egon Schiele || Sorrow, 1914 || Drypoint

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Egon Schiele || Squatting Woman, 1914 || Drypoint

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Egon Schiele || Girl, 1918 || Lithograph

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Egon Schiele || Reclining Nude with Boots, 1918 || Charcoal on paper

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Egon Schiele || Standing Nude with Orange Drapery (recto): Study of Nude with Arms Raised (verso), 1914 || Watercolor, gouache and graphite on paper

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Egon Schiele || Nude in Black Stockings, 1917 || Watercolor and charcoal on paper

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Egon Schiele || Observed in a Dream, 1911 || Watercolor and graphite on paper

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Egon Schiele || Two Reclining Nudes, 1911 || Watercolor and graphite on paper

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Egon Schiele || Self-Portrait, 1911 || Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper

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Egon Schiele || Seated Nude in Shoes and Stockings, 1918 || Charcoal on paper

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Gustav Klimt || Reclining Nude with Drapery, 1912-13 || Graphite

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Gustav Klimt || Two Studies for a Crouching Woman, 1914–15 || Graphite

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Pablo Picasso || Fondevila, 1906 || Oil on canvas

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Pablo Picasso || Head of a Woman, 1922 || Chalk on paper

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Pablo Picasso || Erotic Scene (La Douceur), 1903 || Oil on canvas

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The Met Breuer

August 19th, 2018