Egon Schiele painted a lot of boney and pale white women in scandalously naked positions and that got him into hot water.

Not only was Austria horribly square at the time, but his women were mostly girls. He picked up the young girl thing from his mentor Gustav Klimt, who painted the lush and golden masterpiece "The Kiss" and had his own troubles with fellow Austrians for excessive eroticism of too-young women. Schiele ran off with his master's former model-mistress of 17, Walburga (Wally) Neuzil. He wasn't much older himself, so no problem...yet. But he was then was run out of town (Český Krumlov, Czech Republic), for abducting or, as the more polite art catalogues suggest, 'seducing' a young girl, probably around 14. Nevertheless, Schiele painted the town itself with affection, and unlike his girls, in warm, vivid colors.

Schiele had a weak heart but was nothing if not determined. Forced into the uncomfortable situation of an all-male camp by the Habsburg Empire’s army in World War I, Schiele sketched and painted the Russian prisoners of war he was guarding. These works are not that well known and are significantly less erotic. As the head of camp supplies on account of his great handwriting, he was well-fed and somehow, mid-war, managed to show his work in Zürich, Prague and Dresden.

At 28, with the war over and a respectable wife firmly in place, Austria was at his feet. Like so many other young men, success went to his head. Vienna held a mega-art exhibition and selected 50 of his works for the main hall. Schiele returned the favor by designing the official exhibition poster, and painted the Last Supper with himself in the place of Christ. Ego couldn't save Egon though, when not long after the exhibition the Spanish flu pandemic got him and his wife, along with 20 million others.