Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection

This exhibition at The Met Breuer will present a selection of some 50 works from The Met's Scofield Thayer Collection—a collection that is best known for paintings by artists of the school of Paris, and a brilliant group of erotic and evocative watercolors, drawings, and prints by Gustave Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Pablo Picasso, whose subjects, except for a handful, are nudes. 

The exhibition will be the first time these works have been shown together and will provide a focused look at this important collection; it also marks the centenary of the deaths of Klimt and Schiele.  

Visitors are advised that some images in this exhibition contain explicit erotic content.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.    

Image: Two Reclining Nudes,1911, Egon Schiele (Austrian, Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)  Watercolor and graphite on paper. Metropolitan Museum, NYC. 1984.433.309

Image: Seated Woman, Back View, 1917, Egon Schiele (Austrian, Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna) Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper. Metropolitan Musem NYC. 1984.433.294

Whether you go or not, the exhibition catalog, Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso showcases 52 of the rarely seen works—which have now taken their place as modernist erotic masterpieces—and presents them within the context of the collector’s remarkable life and tempestuous times. Evocative and often highly erotic works on paper are presented along with new details about Scofield Thayer (1889–1982), the unusual and complicated man who collected them. Thayer was a wealthy publisher, poet, and aesthete who led an intense public life that included the editorship of the prominent literary journal The Dial and friendships with literary luminaries such as e. e. cummings. In the 1920s, Thayer went on an art-buying spree in London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, acquiring approximately 600 works of art. Among these are particularly provocative drawings and watercolors by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso, at a time when these works were little known or appreciated.

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