Egon Schiele: “Freundschaft”

Egon Schiele, ““Freundschaft (Friendship)”, 1913, Watercolor, Gouache and Pencil on Paper, 48.2 x 32 cm, Private Collection

“Freundschaft” is marked by the Expressionist era’s embrace of emotional experience over physical reality through its emphasis on inner experiences. Egon Schiele’s depiction of the human form is distinctly characterized by its contorted and sculptural portrayal. Rather than a literal interpretation, he elongated both limbs and torsos with some features accented and others diminished. Schiele’s dynamic line work, an essential element in his portraiture works, creates both tension and movement within the composition.

As the majority of Schiele’s work was titled posthumously, “Freundschaft” is rather unique in that he titled it himself upon completion. There is no detailed information available on the identity of the depicted figures in this mixed-media work. The couple appear to be Egon Schiele and Walburga “Wally” Neuzil, an Austrian nurse who was both lover and muse to Schiele between 1911 and 1915.

In 1911, Wally Neuzil and Egon Schiele met in Vienna; she was seventeen and he was twenty-one at that time. It is possible that they met through Gustav Klimt, Schiele’s mentor for whom Neuzil was a model. Between 1911 and 1915, Neuzil modeled for some of Schiele’s most noted paintings. They lived together unmarried in Schiele’s Vienna home and eventually settled for a short period in Neulengbach, the lower Austrian district of Sankt Pölten-Land.

After returning to Vienna, Schiele established a studio in 1914 at Hietzing, one of Vienna’s suburbs. It was there that he became attracted to and decided to marry Edith Harms, one of two sisters who lived across the street from his studio. Upon learning this, Neuzil immediately left Schiele and never saw him again. She trained as a nurse in Vienna and began working at various military hospitals in the city. While working at a hospital in the city of Sinj, Dalmatia (now Croatia), Walburga Neuzil died from scarlet fever on the twenty-fifth of December in 1917 at the age of twenty-three.

Egon Schiele presented fifty works at the 49th Vienna Secession exhibition in 1918. His showing was a success that resulted in increased prices for his work and many portrait commissions. In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic reached Vienna. Edith Schiele, who was six months pregnant, died from the disease on the 28th of October. Schiele, who was very sick and in a weak condition, died three days after his wife. He was twenty-eight years old.

Notes: According to art historian and curator Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele’s “Freundschaft” was rejected for exhibition on moral grounds by the Munich Secession on the third of December in 1913. It was swiftly purchased privately by Albert von Keller, the President of the Sucession, for fifty marks.

Around 1915, Johannes Fischer created a series of photographs featuring fellow painter Egon Schiele in his studio at Hietzinger Hauptstraße 101. As a colleague and friend, Fischer often exhibited with Schiele, who was two years his junior. In the article’s first insert image, Schiele is looking directly into the camera, his head slightly inclined and his forehead furrowed. The artist’s stance and expression are reminiscent of his self-portraits, such as the 1912 “Self-Portrait with Lowered Head”. The painting in the photo’s background, “Shrines in the Forest II”, is housed at the Kamm Foundation.

Top Insert Image: Johannes Fischer, “Egon Schiele with the 1915 painting ‘Shrines in the Forest II’ in the background”, 1915, Vintage Print, 16.3 x 11.2 cm, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Second Insert Image: Egon Schiele, “Waldandacht II (Shrines in the Forest II)”, 1915, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 120 cm, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm

Bottom Insert Image: Egon Schiele, “Self-Portrait with Lowered Head”, 1912, Oil on Wood Panel, 337 x 422 cm, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer, “The Men’s Bath”, Date Unknown (1490-1528), Woodcut on Paper, 38.7 x 27.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

A printmaker and painter from Nuremberg, Albrecht Dürer is considered one of the most prolific and inventive artists in the German Renaissance. Dürer worked and traveled frequently to Italy during his studies of visual arts and spent time with a lifelong partner, Willibald Prickheimer, a German lawyer and humanist author.

Albrecht Dürer’s depiction of men relaxing in a public bath house was unusual in the early 1500s because it showed nudity without an accompanying mythological or biblical narrative. The print showcases Dürer’s ability to depict the male figure in various inventive poses and may feature portraits of some of his friends. Meant to be studied closely, the image includes visual puns such as the faucet placed near the man’s groin at left. The popularity of the print during Dürer’s lifetime may relate to the 1496 closure of the public bath in his hometown of Nuremberg to prevent a syphilis outbreak.

Notes: The “Ideas Made of Light” blog has an excellent article by its author, artist and UI designer Scott M.McDaniel, on Albecht Dürer’s “The Men’s Bathhouse” at: http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/?p=702

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Brian Henry

The Photography of Brian Henry

Based in Maryland’s east coast city of Baltimore, Brian Henry is a self-taught, experimental analog photographer and explorer of abandoned sites. His work is an ongoing journal that documents architectural decay, explores the human body and its relationship to deserted spaces, examines emotions stirred by intimacy, fear and mortality, and uses the medium of photography as a narrative instrument.

Brian Henry became intrigued with analog photographic material and its capabilities during a traditional high school photography class. He became interested in how little alterations in the process changed the appearance of the image. Although Henry won a several scholarships to attend art school, he chose to apply his resources to his own unscripted, artistic journey. Henry has traveled a photographic journey up and down the East Coast of the U.S., as well as Europe and the Balkans.

For a period of nearly twenty years, Brian Henry has worked with different films, cameras and chemicals to understand how each affected the image of his subject. The equipment he prefers are the Pentx 67 with 55mm and Hp5 as well as Polaroid cameras and their films. Henry has learned and expanded upon traditional darkroom printing processes, often altering the prints and complimenting the subject with effects of distress and decay. He has at times buried the images in decaying buildings to achieve the correct effect for the each print’s unique irreplaceable mementos of time.

In 2019, Brian Henry participated in the seventh edition of the Revela’t Analog Photography Festival in Vilassar de Dalt near Barcelona, Spain. He has also presented his work in several group exhibitions including the 2018 “Fotofilmic17” at Galerie Binome in Paris and “The Male Gaze” at Seattle, Washington’s Gallery 1/1 in the United States. In 2019, Henry had is first solo exhibition, “Brian Henry: Silver Gelatin & Polaroid Prints” at the Steven Amedee Gallery in New York City.

Brian Henry and Greg Hatem are co-owners of Bazaar Curious Gifts at 3534 Chestnut Street in Baltimore’s iconic Hampden neighborhood. This is the gift shop for those seeking strange and unusual gifts, among which are an unique collection of natural history items, antique medical instruments, unique home decor items and other curious objects. The Bazaar Curious Gifts online shop is located at: https://www.bazaarbaltimore.com

“My work is an ongoing journal documenting architectural decay and my own mortality. I attempt to portray the beauty I see in these structures and occasionally include myself and others within them…. When I shoot Polaroid film, I consider it a unique souvenir of my experience. There’s something meaningful in creating something tangible within a space that will soon be destroyed. Other film mediums allow me to bend reality and add additional effects of distress and decay. In some instances, I have used photographic paper and film found in abandoned buildings. Other times, I have buried my images in decaying buildings for effects. It is all part of my attempts of connecting with a space.” —Brian Henry

Notes: The Thoughts & Photography of Johnny Martyr website has a 2019 interview with Brian Henry entitled “The Instant (Film) Decay of Brian Henry” at: https://johnnymartyr.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/the-instant-film-decay-of-brian-henry/

The fine art photography daily “LENS/CRATCH” has an article and interview with Brian Henry entitled “Beyond Instant Eros: Brian Henry’s Polaroids of Desire and Decay” at: https://lenscratch.com/2024/05/queer-photography-week-decay-mortality-brian-henry/

If you choose to repost some of Brian Henry’s photos, please credit the artist on the posting.

Top Insert Image: Brian Henry, “Self Portrait”, Color Print

Second Insert Image: Brian Henry, “Presence”, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Brian Henry, Title Unknown (Self-Portrait), Gelatin Silver Print

David Burke: Film History

David Burke as Dr. James Hamish Watson, 1984, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, Color Photo, Independent Television (ITV), London

Born in Liverpool on the twenty-fifth of May in 1934, David Patrick George Burke was a British actor trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His career of fifty-three years encompassed theatrical, film and television roles.

The son of the deeply Catholic Patrick and Mary Burke from County Cork, Ireland, David Burke decided early in life, despite his mother’s disapproval, to enter into the world of theater. His first small role was in an Oxford University performance during his studies at the college. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Burke was a classically trained actor whose passion was the theater. He worked for the National Theatre of Great Britain, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Royal Lyceum Company.

In 1971, Burke married actress Anna Calder Marshall, a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, who had just finished a lead role opposite Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 drama film “Wuthering Heights”. Both David and Anna Burke continued their careers in theater after their marriage. David Burke acted in a series of Shakespearean plays: the role of Othello (1975), Hector in “Troilus and Cressida” (1985), Kent in “King Lear” (1997) , and John of Gaunt in “Richard II”(2000).

David Burke did not confine himself to the classics but acted in such theatrical productions as Alfred Neumann’s 1962 adaptation of “War and Peace” at the Phoenix and Old Vic Theatres in London; Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” at the Olivier, National Theatre; Nermin Hamzagic’s 2008 production of Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen” at the Royal National Theatre; and James Macdonald’s 2013 production of Arnold Wesker’s raw drama “Roots” at London’s Donmar Warehouse. Burke also recorded audio versions of Shakespeare’s plays as well as such modern works as playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1952 “Waiting for Godot”.

The most constant and solid support for Burke’s career came from his many diverse roles on the television screen that began in 1963. These appearances broadened his audience and heightened his acting reputation. Burke became a familiar face on many of the era’s classic detective shows including “Dixon of Dock Green” and “Barlow at Large”. He portrayed Joseph Stalin in the 1983 “Reilly, Ace of Spies” and performed in such television productions as “The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling”, “The Guardians”, “The Winter’s Tale”, and the 1963 Hercules Poirot film “Pension Vanilos”.

Of all his roles, David Burke is most often recognized for his performance as Sherlock Holmes’s companion, Dr. John Watson. However, his initial role in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes series was not that of Watson but the cynical Sir George Burnwell in “The Beryl Coronet”, the eighth episode of the 1964/1965 British Broadcasting Company series “Sherlock”. British producer and director Michael Cox, who had worked previously with Burke, immediately gave him the role of Watson for the upcoming Granada Television series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. In that role, Burke successfully embodied the alert, curious, caring and sympathetic attributes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Watson as he was envisioned by the author.

Asked to sign a contract for another season (The Return of Sherlock Holmes), Burke declined, citing his wish to return to his wife, Anna, and young son, Tom, in the family’s Kent home. For his replacement, he recommended the perfect successor, Edward Hardwicke, an actor whose accomplishments paralleled Burke’s career. After leaving the Holmes series, Burke and his wife accepted an offer to perform together with the Royal Shakespeare Company and continued to act in their later years. Burke also appeared with Anna Calder-Marshall in Clare Holman’s 2018 short drama film “Only the Lonely”.

David Patrick George Burke died on the tenth of May in 2026. A British postage stamp commemorating the Sherlock Holmes series featured an image of David Burke and Jeremy Brett as Watson and Holmes. David and Anna Burke’s son, Tom Burke, became an actor and is best known for the BBC series “The Three Musketeers” and his starring role in “Strike”, an episode of which he performed with his parents.

Notes: Clare Holman’s 2018 “Only the Lonely”, featuring David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall, can be seen in its entirety on the Klipist website: https://klipist.com/watch/only-the-lonely/

Biographies of both David Burke and Jeremy Brett as well as the history of the BBC “Sherlock Holmes” television series can be found at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia located at: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/wiki/David_Burke

For those who wish to known all the episodes of Granada Television’s 1984/1994 “Sherlock Holmes”series, the episodes titles and dates are listed on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sherlock_Holmes_episodes

Top Insert Image: David Burke as John Hale, “The Crucible”, 1990, Olivier Theatre, National Theater, London

Second Insert Image: David Burke as Camillo, 1981, “The Winter’s Tale”, Director Jane Howell, BBC Television/Video

Bottom Insert Image: David Burke as Vilhelm Foldal, 2007, David Eldridge’s Adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “John Gabriel Borkman”, Donmar Warehouse, London

Gonzalo Orquin

The Artwork of Gonzalo Orquin

Born in 1982 at Aracena, a town in the Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche National Park, Gonzalo Orquín is a Spanish multi-media artist, painter and photographer. His oeuvre includes works on paper, oils on canvas, street art, and installations.

At an early age, Orquin relocated with his family to Seville, the provincial capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia. He studied Fine Arts at Spain’s University of Seville between 2000 and 2004. Orquin continued his studies at Italy’s University of Perugia in 2005. He later undertook a residency at the Fondazione Sant’Elia, the cultural center for the promotion of the artistic and cultural heritage of the Province of Palermo, where his work was inspired by the light and traditions of the surrounding area.

Gonzalo Orquin’s work is influenced by the traditional Spanish realism of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. through which he transforms the intimacy of everyday occurrences into measured dramatic events. His paintings consist of portraits and populated scenes, both interior and exterior, that are often created with a muted palette. Committed to the rights of the LBGTQ world, Orquin’w work, which displays a thoughtful depth of emotion, focuses on both gay and straight subjects with an eye to both the past and the present.

In 1999 at the age of sixteen, Orquin had his first exhibition in Seville. His first solo exhibition was held in Rome in 2006. In that year, Orquin received the Oltre i Libri Award from the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. He has participated in group shows at Rome’s Royal Spanish Academy and St. Petersburg’s Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art. Orquin has presented his work in solo exhibitions at Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO), and the Leslie=Lohman Museum of Art in New York City.

As a photographer, Gonzalo Orquin is best known for his 2013 series “Si Quiero”, a collection of sixteen photographs of same-sex couples kissing in churches mainly located in Rome. Originally presented as part of “Trialogo”, a solo exhibition of his work in various mediums, these images were considered offensive by the diocese of Rome which threatened legal action. For the duration of the exhibition, these images were covered with black cardboard. Later exhibitions of the entire series were held at the Gallery MooiMan in Groningen, the Netherlands, and New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in April/May of 2015.

In 2023, Orquin presented his exhibition “Being Human-The Sea At Night Is Too Big” at Brussels’s MigratieMuseumMigration (MMM). This show focused on the stories and experiences of migrant and refugees arriving in Europe, either by sea to Italy or by land to Bosnia. The project was a collaboration with Italian photojournalist Francesco Malavolta which included a documentary film by French director Alex Forge who narrates Orquin’s work process and meetings with the migrants and refugees.

Gonzalo Orquin currently lives and works between Italy and Spain. A twenty-year retrospective exhibition of his work was held in Palermo, Italy in September of 2025. Orquin’s website is located at: https://www.gonzaloorquin.com

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Gonzalo Orquin”, 2021, Color Video Shot

Second Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, Untitled Still Life (Art Supplies), Oil on Canvas

Third Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, “Julian and Leo”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 90 x70 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, “Un Muchacho Ruso”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 45 x 45 cm

NASA Mars Recruitment Posters

NASA Mars Recruitment Posters for Explorers: Art by NASA

Born in Chicago, Illinois in September of 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American writer of adventure, fantasy and science fiction series. He was the fourth son of Civil War veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs and Mary Evaline Zieger , both of whom were from Warren, Massachusetts.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is best known for the twenty-four books of the “Tarzan” series and the eleven-volume Barsoom series with the early sci-fi hero John Carter, a Civil War veteran from Virginia who becomes a warrior on the planet Mars. Created in 1911, the character of Carter has appeared in short stories, novels, comic books, television shows and films, most notably Andrew Stanton’s 2012 feature film “John Carter”, that marked the 101st anniversary of John Carter’s first published appearance.

Burroughs’s first novel of the Barsoom/Carter series, “Under the Moons of Mars”, was written between July and September of 1911; it was serialized in Frank Munsey’s monthly pulp magazine “The All Story” from February to July in 1913. After the publishing success of Burroughs’s “Tarzan” series, “Under the Moons of Mars” was published as a hardcover edition in October of 1917 by A.C. McClurg & Company under the title “A Princess of Mars”.

John Carter was the lead character in Burroughs’s first novel of the Barsoom series. He featured most prominently in five of the following volumes: “The Gods of Mars”, “The Warlord of Mars”, ‘The Swords of Mars”, “Llana of Gathol”, and “John Carter of Mars” published in 1964, fourteen years after Burroughs’s death. As a secondary character, Carter appeared in the fourth volume “Thuvia, Maid of Mars” and the ninth volume “Synthetic Men of Mars’. A volume, entitled “John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten” by sci fi author Geary Gravel, was released by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in September of 2021.

Homages to Burroughs’s character John Carter and his world of Mars have appeared in works by such science fiction writers as Alan Moore, Robert A. Heinlein, Charles Stross, Philip José Farmer, and Harry Turtledove. In 2020, Altus Press released an authorized “Tarzan”novel entitled “Tarzan: Conqueror of Mars” written by Will Murray. In the novel, Tarzan finds himself marooned on Barsoom and seeks John Carter’s help to return home.

The Karnak Temple

Photographer Unknown, (Inside the Karnak Temple in Luxor)

Consisting of more than one hundred hectares, Karnak is an ancient temple precinct in Egypt located on the east bank of the Nile River in modern-day Luxor, formerly Thebes. The largest sector is the central portion which is dedicated to Amun-Ra, considered to be the supreme creator, the god of fertility and life.

In the southern central sector is a precinct dedicated to the goddess Mut, wife of Amun-Ra, the primal mother goddess who is associated with the waters from which everything is born. She was a patron deity of Thebes along with her husband Amun-Ra and their son Khonsu, god of the moon.

North of the central area is a precinct dedicated to Montu, the falcon headed god of war and embodiment of the conquering vitality of the Pharaoh. The ancient god Montu was the manifestation of the sun, Ra, whose scorching destructive effect caused him to be considered initially a warrior; he was eventually given status as a god of war.

To the east of the central sector, there is an area that was dedicated to Aten, the solar disc. The deity Aten was the focus of the monotheistic religion established by Amenhotep IV who worshiped Aten as the creator, the giver of life, and the nurturing spirit of the world. Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, reestablished the priesthood of Amun and destroyed the temple area of Aten. A prolific builder, Horemheb constructed the Second, Ninth and Tenth Pylons of the great Hypostyle Hall in the precinct of Amon-Ra at the Temple of Karnak.

The last major building program at Karnak was under the reign of Nectanebo I, a king of the Thirtieth and last Dynasty of Egypt. He built a large enclosure wall around the site along with another temple. He also started, but did not complete, a new pylon at the western entrance of Karnak. The rulers of foreign descent who took control of Egypt continued work at Karnak, creating a series of burial catacombs dedicated to Osiris, god of the underworld. When Rome seized control of Egypt in 30BCE and maintained control for a six hundred year period. Structual work at Karnak ceased when Rome established power, ending a span of two thousand years of construction. .