Moa, Egon Schiele (1911)
Moa was a dancer and friend of Schiele, who performed in cabarets alongside her partner Erwin Osen - a theatrical painter also closely connected to Schiele. Both posed repeatedly for him between 1910 and 1911.
In Schiele's watercolor, Moa is draped in exotic, richly colored fabrics whose stark, geometric design conceals her body entirely, while her black-framed face and expressive eyes stand out in sharp contrast. This deliberate tension between realistic portraiture and decorative abstraction reflects a new expressive dimension Schiele was developing at the time.
The work shows how far Schiele had moved beyond Klimt - transforming his robed figures into something entirely new, leaving behind Klimt's "seductive illusion" and bridging Jugendstil into Expressionism.
