Egon Schiele was seen as the successor to Gustav Klimt, but died before he could fulfil his promise.

In 1909 he left the Academy, after completing his third year. He found a flat and a studio and set up on his own. At this time he showed an interest in pubescent children, especially young girls, who were often the subjects of his drawings, some were extremely erotic. He made part of his income by supplying collectors of pornography. Schiele was also fascinated by his own appearance, and made self-portraits in large numbers.

Schiele liked to give an impression of extreme poverty. He suffered from persecution mania. In 1911 Schiele met seventeen-year-old Wally Neuzil, who lived with him for a while and served as the model for some of his best paintings. Schiele and Wally moved to the small town of Krumau, where Schiele had family connections, but were driven out by the inhabitants’ disapproval. They then moved to Neulengbach. Schiele's studio here became a gathering place for the delinquent children of the neighbourhood. His way of life inevitably aroused animosity, and in April 1912 he was arrested. The police seized more than a hundred drawings, which they considered pornographic, and Schiele was imprisoned, to await trial for seducing a young girl below the age of consent. When the case came before a judge the charges of abduction and seduction were dropped, but the artist was found guilty of exhibiting an erotic drawing in a place accessible to children. The twenty-one days he had already spent in custody were taken into account, and he was sentenced to only three days' imprisonment. Though the magistrate made a point of personally burning one of Schiele's drawings before the assembled crowd. While he was in prison, he produced a series of self-portrait drawings. The Neulengbach affair had no effect on his career, and apparently little on his character, apart from supplying him with tangible proof that he was indeed a victim. In 1912 he was invited to the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, and the important dealer Hans Goltz of Munich also took him on.

Schiele's narcissism, exhibitionism and persecution-mania are all found in the poster he produced for his first one-man exhibition, held at the Gallery Arnot at the very beginning of 1915, in which . Some time in 1914 he met two sisters who lived opposite his studio. Schiele was attracted to both, but eventually fixed his sights on Edith; by April 1915 he was engaged to her, and Wally Neuzil was rather cold-bloodedly dismissed. He wrote her a letter saying that despite their parting, they take a holiday together every summer - without Edith, Wally refused. Schiele and Edith married, despite her family's opposition, in June 1915. Schiele's mother wasn’t there.

Four days later Schiele was called up. He was in part of a detachment transporting Russian prisoners-of-war to and from Vienna, later became a clerk in a prison camp for Russian officers, and finally, in January 1917, he was moved to work for the 'Imperial and Royal Commission for the Army in the Field' - a depot, which supplied food, drink, tobacco and other comforts to the Austrian army.

Prices for Schiele's drawings trebled after the war, and he was offered many portrait commissions. He and Edith moved to a new and grander house and studio. Their pleasure in it was brief. On 19 October 1918 Edith, who was pregnant, fell ill with Spanish influenza. On 28 October she died, Egon was devastated and immediately came down with the same sickness. He died on 31 October, three days after his wife.