Anybody visiting Vienna between now and late September would do well to visit the exhibition at the Belvedere Gallery focusing on the work of Egon Schiele and the early years of Austrian Expressionism. Another protagonist of this exhibition is Oskar Kokoschka, a figure who has remained marginal in art history despite his powerfully moving work. At times, I found it difficult to walk away from Kokoschka´s exhibits when I visited the gallery this morning.

Apart from portraying the melancholic paintings of the artists, the exhibition examines their lives, strategies and friendships. At the height of his career, aged 28 and just three days after his wife, Egon Schiele died of the Spanish flu epidemic that killed millions of Europeans. He spent the last three days of his life painting sketches of his dead wife.

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