12/11/2025
Another fascinating artist from the Leopold Museum in Vienna is Richard Gerstl. This is an early self-portrait and his portraits really jump out at you, very original and dynamic. He was the first Austrian expressionist and later belonged to the Vienna Secession Movement. He painted this self-portrait aged 21 or 22 years old.
Gerstl had a tempestuous contempt for the bourgeois lifestyle of contemporaries, such as Gustav Klimt, though Richard himself was supported by affluent parents. He was said to be headstrong and rebellious. In 1906 he gave painting lessons to Arnold Schoenberg and his wife Matilde, and the trio became close friends. Two years later Richard had a passionate affair with Matilde, who may have been glad to escape her husband's music. Arnold Schoenberg threatened su***de and Matilde returned to the marital home. On November 4, 1908, the 25-year-old destroyed many of his paintings, stripped naked, stabbed himself in the chest, and hanged himself in front of a full-length mirror.
For many years Gerstl was forgotten and his paintings were hidden away. Some thirty years later, his brother showed two paintings to Otto Kallir, an art dealer who specialised in Vienna Secession and, later, Expressionist artworks. Around 65 of his paintings survive.
