WALLY NEUZIL
Her Life with Egon Schiele

27th February 2015 to 7th September 2015

extendet to 7th September 2015

The painting “Portrait of Wally Neuzil”, housed by the Vienna Leopold Museum, is among the most well-known works by Egon Schiele. The upcoming exhibition at the Leopold Museum curated by Diethard Leopold, Stephan Pumberger, and Birgit Summerauer seeks to uncover the person behind the portrait, Walburga “Wally” Neuzil (1894-1917), approaching her through artworks, autographs, photographs and documents. Featured in the presentation will be eminent paintings by Schiele, such as “Death and the Maiden”, an important loan from the Belvedere, as well as drawings and watercolors by Schiele for which Wally acted as a model. The exhibition comprises works from the Leopold Museum, the Leopold Private Collection as well as loans from Austrian and international collections.

The exhibition examines the stages of Wally’s life, her professions, from model to nurse, and tells the tale of a woman’s fate in fin-de-siècle Vienna, between self-sacrifice and self-fulfillment, between a life without taboos and profound humanity.

Walburga/Wally Neuzil was not only Egon Schiele’s model from early 1911 but also his girlfriend and faithful companion until the spring of 1915. Having started out as one of many models, she soon played a key role in Schiele’s life and works. Schiele created himself, his vision of an artist, through his works, while Wally revealed to him a world that was indispensable for this development – an open sexuality that had progressed from the constraints and dangers encountered by adolescents towards an emotionality enjoyed on an equal footing, an ability to have relationships and with it a more stable, reliable self.Continue Reading..