The women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka

by Agnes Husslein-Arco

"In the early twentieth century, the traditional relationship between the sexes was challenged by a number of social, economic, and philosophical changes. It was above all the incipient development towards gender equality and sexual liberation that upset the restrictive moral conventions of the nineteenth century. Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka--then the three most outstanding painters of Viennese Modernism--approached the subject matter generally referred to as 'the woman question' from slightly different perspectives"--Jacket.