Infant Nude

Description

Egon Schiele
Infant Nude (Newborn Baby)
1910
Watercolor on paper
Gift of the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection, 2007/2.95
It was difficult for Schiele to employ grown models, as he often could not afford to pay them for their services. The artist’s increasing use of child models—who were reluctant to stay still—encouraged him to develop a faster, simpler line. The tendency of charcoal to bleed after the application of watercolor caused Schiele to gradually lose interest in interior modeling of the body, while retaining an attention to details such as eyes, hair, and the fleshy folds of the newborn’s skin. In 1910, Schiele was given access to the University Women’s Clinic by the gynecologist Erwin von Graff, to whom he had recently been introduced. Although many of the drawings and watercolors he produced there were of pregnant women, it is likely that this study of a newborn infant, and others like it, were created during his visits to the hospital.