Ernst Ploil

Collecting to Come to Terms with Existence and Gain Insight

Already at the age of twelve, Ernst Ploil visited the studios of young painters, sculptors, and ceramists. At eighteen, he acquired his first object, a glass vase from the period after 1900. Starting in the mid-nineteen seventies, the successful Vienna lawyer, who for decades liked to consult experts he was also friends with, expanded the range of his collection. It now covered all forms of art, design, and crafts from the turn of the century, especially including designs by artists from the Wiener Werkstätte as well as the small factories Lötz, Lobmayr, Kohn, and Hagenauer.

Sammlung Ploil Lukas Beck.jpg

In the spirit of the Gesamtkunstwerk, Ploil subsequently added the liberal arts and, finally, international art after 1945 to his interests. Concept, art, and Minimalism converge in Ploil’s life and work. To him, precision and analysis are no contradiction to collecting as an instinctive, fundamental need. The will to understand important works and groups of works is his guiding principle. Lötz vases, furniture from Klimt’s studio, and the symbolism in Schiele’s works or in minimalist paintings by Gerhard Richter, Josef Albers, and Ad Reinhardt: Ernst Ploil endeavors to understand the deeper meaning of works of art and the way they impress their effect on him.

What self-confidence looks like

Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat

What self-confidence looks like

What self-confidence looks like

Rarely has a young artist painted himself with such an air of self-assurance. Egon Schiele was twenty years old and had moved into a house in Neulengbach, intending to stay there for good. The artist was successful and able to show his works at international exhibitions, but for him that was only the beginning. He was aiming for the stars.

Before Schiele became a super star, he created a self-portrait of almost boundless idealization. The angle of vision already leads the viewer to look upwards towards artist, whose pose exudes fashionable elegance, his head framed in a manner reminiscent of figures of a saints. The Peacock Waistcoat gives a name to the vanity of the pose. This magnificent self-portrait was soon followed by the sobering experience of the “Neulengbach affair.” Now, the artist was no longer in the vanguard of society, but in prison and pushed to its fringes. 

Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat, 1911
© 
Ernst Ploil, Wien

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Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat

What self-confidence looks like

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

Egon Schiele

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

Schiele created this painting between May and October 1911. It reflects a both turbulent and vital creative period that saw him move between Krumau and Neulengbach and produce some of his most seminal works. This includes numerous paintings filled with a symbolism that has not been fully decrypted to this day. The “Procession” is the only work Schiele signed four times, and it was of utmost importance to him. He intended to show it at international exhibitions (Munich Secession, Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne) and repeatedly emphasized its significance.

With this painting Schiele created a picture puzzle that Ernst Ploil has discussed extensively in his writings. Its content connects elements of the esoteric with the private realm, and the resulting coded family portrait that can be interpreted as a modern form of self-expression and reflection.

Egon Schiele, The Procession, 1911
© Ernst Ploil, Wien

more ...

Egon Schiele

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

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What self-confidence looks like

Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat

What self-confidence looks like

What self-confidence looks like

Rarely has a young artist painted himself with such an air of self-assurance. Egon Schiele was twenty years old and had moved into a house in Neulengbach, intending to stay there for good. The artist was successful and able to show his works at international exhibitions, but for him that was only the beginning. He was aiming for the stars.

Before Schiele became a super star, he created a self-portrait of almost boundless idealization. The angle of vision already leads the viewer to look upwards towards artist, whose pose exudes fashionable elegance, his head framed in a manner reminiscent of figures of a saints. The Peacock Waistcoat gives a name to the vanity of the pose. This magnificent self-portrait was soon followed by the sobering experience of the “Neulengbach affair.” Now, the artist was no longer in the vanguard of society, but in prison and pushed to its fringes. 

Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait with Peacock Waistcoat, 1911
© 
Ernst Ploil, Wien

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

Egon Schiele

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

The Procession as a Picture Puzzle and Modern Self-Expression

Schiele created this painting between May and October 1911. It reflects a both turbulent and vital creative period that saw him move between Krumau and Neulengbach and produce some of his most seminal works. This includes numerous paintings filled with a symbolism that has not been fully decrypted to this day. The “Procession” is the only work Schiele signed four times, and it was of utmost importance to him. He intended to show it at international exhibitions (Munich Secession, Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne) and repeatedly emphasized its significance.

With this painting Schiele created a picture puzzle that Ernst Ploil has discussed extensively in his writings. Its content connects elements of the esoteric with the private realm, and the resulting coded family portrait that can be interpreted as a modern form of self-expression and reflection.

Egon Schiele, The Procession, 1911
© Ernst Ploil, Wien