Klimt's and Schiele's draftsmanship still enthralls with its disturbing eroticism

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) and his younger protégé Egon Schiele (1890-1918) are considered two of the greatest figures of Austrian Modernism. Whether inspiring or competing with one another, together they reconfigured the way the human body was translated into art. Although both artists are primarily remembered as painters, between them they left 7,000 drawings, many of the greatest of which are now in the collection of the Albertina Museum, Vienna.

In 2018 an exhibition opens at the Royal Academy in London of both artists' drawings from the Albertina collection, which are very rarely displayed and almost never travel. This stunning publication records these precious works in all their erotic, intriguing and sometimes disturbing beauty. Leading experts on the period provide authoritative texts that illuminate the important relationship between the two artists. They analyze the role of drawing in their practice and chart the response of early 20th-century Vienna to their electrifying work, which still has the power to shock and enthrall to this day.