The Royal Academy of Arts is to mark the centenary of the death of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt with an exhibition focusing on how drawing was important to both artists. 

On display from the 4th November, this will be the first UK exhibition to  focus on the fundamental importance of drawing for both artists, from the origins of their academic training to their unconventional explorations of the human figure expressed through line.

Bringing together more than 100 works on paper by both artists, including studies for allegorical paintings, portraits and self-portraits, landscapes, erotic nudes and a sketchbook on loan from the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Due to the works being sensitive to light, many of the pieces will not be displayed for many years after the Royal Academy exhibition.

The exhibition will be arranged thematically in five sections examining Klimt’s and Schiele’s often divergent, yet sometimes compellingly parallel, processes and graphic styles. Throughout, it will reveal the ways in which these two artists experimented with the discipline of drawing from life, particularly in their provocative depictions of the human body in allegories, portraits and erotic nudes.

This will be a unique opportunity to see works such as Klimt’s sketches for his seminal Beethoven Frieze, and self-portraits by Schiele.

Klimt/Schiele: Drawings from the Albertina Museum will be on display at the Royal Academy of Arts from the 4th November until the 3rd February 2019. For more information visit: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/klimt-schiele.