VIENNA, AUSTRIA.- The 2006 exhibition highlight at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is focused on Egon Schiele (1890–1918) and his “Tafelrunde” [Round Table]. The exhibition gives a precise overview of an important period of Austrian art that lasted eight years. Numerous paintings, prints, books, and archive documents illustrate the activities of the Neukunstgruppe [New Artists Group].

At an early point in time, Egon Schiele started looking out for kindred spirits. Already as a student in Klosterneuburg, he founded the so-called “Union-Kunstzeichenanstalt” [Art Sign Establishment Union]. In 1909, Schiele and a number of his fellow students withdrew from Prof. Griepenkerl’s class at the Wiener Akademie. At the same time, the artists formed the Neukunstgruppe and held their first common exhibition at the Kunstsalon Gustav Pisko. Friendship was to remain a number one topic for Schiele, both in a biographical and an economic respect.

In the manifest of the Neukunstgruppe, Egon Schiele shortly afterwards demanded that individuals have a calling to be artists and expressed his conviction that a new creation requires liberation from traditions and conventions. This manifest is shown on a screen that runs through the exhibition as an architectural leitmotif, designed by the exhibition architect Prof. Adolf Krischanitz. In six chapters, the curators Tobias G. Natter and Thomas Trummer demonstrate how Schiele broke loose from the conventions of historicism and Art Nouveau and reached his ripe stage of form-finding while always backed by the works of his companions. The first room centres on early attempts and the cooperation with the Kunstsalon Pisko. Rooms 2 and 3 deal with the activities of the ‘new artists’, theirexhibitions, and initiatives. They hold paintings that belong to exhibitions in Vienna, Prague, and Budapest.

Room 4 is fully lined with black fabric. Here, exemplary works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele have been placed side by side for comparison. These selected works show the extent to which Schiele followed his mentor and friend in matters of art and yet developed an entirely new style. While Klimt promised the world healing through art, Schiele’s outlook was always weighed down by a threat to the self and a sense of darkness. Nevertheless, the group remained closely connected to its fatherly mentor and idol, Gustav Klimt. Further activities and exhibitions were to follow. The Neukunstgruppe became the rallying point and hallmark of the post-secessionist avant-garde.

Rooms 5 and 6 deal with the ‘new artists’’ concept of man and with the artists who took part in the exhibitions of the Neukunstgruppe such as Oskar Kokoschka or Arnold Schönberg. Excellent works by Anton Peschka, Schiele’s brother-in-law, Max Oppenheimer, and Albert Paris Gütersloh, who was also the speaker and intellectual impresario of the Neukunstgruppe, are also on display. The many double talents underline the closeness between words and pictures. Gütersloh, Kubin, Faistauer, and Kokoschka published writings and tried to bring verbalised and visualised aesthetic ideas together.

The show at the Belvedere reached its peak with the 49th exhibition of the Wiener Secession in March 1918, which was so important for Schiele and meant his breakthrough. The painting “Die Tafelrunde” that stood in the centre of the exhibition room was already done in 1917.

Until today, it has only been on public display twice: 1926 in Vienna and 1927 in Berlin. It is privately owned in the United States and has now returned to its place of origin for a short time. It shows Schiele, surrounded by his friends. These are Georg Merkel, Felix Albrecht Harta, Alfred Kubin, Anton Faistauer, and Gustav Klimt. The poster designed for the exhibition at the Secession shows the same circle of friends, but here, the figures are anonymised, and a seat has been left empty for Gustav Klimt, who had died in the meantime. Only eight months after the important exhibition success at the Secession, Schiele died of Spanish influenza at the age of 28.