Eduard Kosmack

Eduard Kosmack published two Viennese magazines, Der Architekt and Das Interieur, and in the city's art world he was also known as a hypnotist. In 1910 he sat for Schiele, who was barely 20, most likely through the critic Arthur Roessler, the young painter's most important early supporter. The portrait is built around that reputation. Kosmack sits bolt upright in the middle of a square canvas, a high bare forehead above pale, staring eyes, his arms pressed to his sides and his bony hands locked between his knees. The light background is almost empty, and the only thing that breaks the symmetry is a small, dark sunflower low at one side. Beside the sitter's elbow Schiele set his initial and the year, S.10. The following year Das Interieur reproduced one of the painter's sunflower paintings.