Can you, and should you, separate the art from the artist?

Klimt and Schiele are known for their rich, captivating and scandalously erotic works of art and as icons of Modernism, but to view their work without acknowledging the complexities of the pair would be doing a disservice.
The issues surrounding the two artists – particularly Schiele who was accused, arrested and subsequently cleared of abducting and seducing a minor, but was charged and imprisoned for public immorality after showing his explicit drawings and paintings to a minor – give us the opportunity to ask ourselves the question: in the context of the 21st Century, how should we appreciate art by artists who do great work, but not-so-great things?

I first started to think seriously about the issues surrounding Schiele and Klimt’s work after reading an article on DAZED called What do we do with art made by bad people? Although it doesn’t discuss in depth either artist, the cover photo - Self Portrait with Lowered Head by Schiele – got me thinking. I had long loved the works of both artists and had to some extent always been aware of the sexual assault allegations and Schiele’s time in prison, however, in exhibitions their work is always sold to you as erotic angst or scandalous sexuality; all of which are more sexy than scary. As well as Schiele’s period in prison, his images hugely over-sexualise young girls and “Klimt also produced scores of sketches of the female form intended mostly for his own gratification” (Hughes, 2008).

In the current exhibition at the Royal Academy, Klimt/Schiele: Drawings, these issues were touched upon more successfully than I’d experienced before. Although the descriptions within the section mainly concerned with these issues, 1912 Schiele’s Imprisonment, are somewhat brief and could have done with a little more substantial examination, they did provide the facts of Schiele’s imprisonment and gave some awareness to his use of young prostitutes as models.

Next to the drawing Black-haired Nude Girl is a description reading “The model of this work is likely a young prostitute, we do not know how old she is. In Vienna at this time the age of consent was as low as 14 years”. This description jarred with me at first, it felt as though in mentioning this it would make it okay and placate the rising feelings of unease. However, after lengthy discussions over the course of the day I began to understand the context it put Schiele in. Although even at the time the work was unsettling, it may have gained more potency because of the context in which we live now, where consent is higher and prostitutes not so readily available.

As a society we have all experienced the shock uncovering of people like Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, and more visual arts specific: Chuck Close and Thomas Roma, who have had sexual allegations made towards them and have had their works put on indefinite hold by galleries. How do we negotiate our appreciation for artists such as these?

​When talking about these issues in relation to Woody Allen, Erin Kohn, chief film critic and deputy editor for IndieWire and the director of the Criticwire network, questions if an audience can or should separate artist from artwork:

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​Having conducted a lot of research into both Schiele’s work and the artists himself before the exhibition I was able to renegotiate the ways in which I appreciate and understand the work, in acknowledgment of the direct and wider issues accompanying the works. I wonder, however, if the RA gave enough information for audiences much less familiar with the work to do the same.

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art came under fire for their exhibition of Balthus, and specifically the painting Therese Dreaming for its depiction of the sexualisation of a pre-pubescent girl, they defended the work and themselves strongly, stating that “moments such as this provide an opportunity for discussion, and visual art is one of the most significant means we have for reflecting on both the past and the present” (Weine cited in O'Neill, 2017).


But, what do you think? Can you, and should you, separate the art from the artist?


by Holly Daisy Broughton

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Klimt / Schiele
Drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna
4 November 2018 - 3 February 2019