Austrian Expressionism: Lilly Steiner:
Portrait of a Woman (Kreolin), 1928
Gouache on paper
52.5 × 36.7 cm (20 ½ × 14 ½ in.)
©Acquired by the Baltimore Museum of Art

This 1928 gouache belongs to Steiner’s early Paris years, when her portraiture combined the expressive energy of her Viennese training with the cooler, more measured sensibility she developed in France. The title Kreolin—the German term for “Creole”—points to a sitter almost certainly drawn from the vibrant African‑American artistic community that flourished in Paris during the 1920s. Steiner belonged to a family deeply woven into Vienna’s artistic life; Egon Schiele drew her, her husband, and even other members of the Steiner household in 1918, capturing the intimacy of their shared circle. The city offered opportunities unavailable in segregated America, and its cabarets, salons, and nightclubs became home to a remarkable wave of Black musicians, dancers, and performers.

Steiner’s portrait captures this cultural moment with striking immediacy. The dynamic washes, vivid color contrasts, and confident contouring reveal her lingering affinity for Expressionism, while the poised, frontal presentation suggests a sitter accustomed to the stage. Black performers had become central to Parisian nightlife after Josephine Baker’s sensational debut in 1925, and Steiner—who often portrayed musicians and composers—was naturally drawn to this world. Whether the sitter was a singer, dancer, or performer remains unknown, but the portrait stands among Steiner’s most compelling works: a rare artistic testament to the cosmopolitan, cross‑cultural energy of late‑1920s Paris.

The following biographical note is based on research by the Baltimore Museum of Art, whose scholarship I gratefully acknowledge.

Lilly Steiner, born Lilly Hofmann in 1884, grew up in a Jewish Viennese family during the city’s great cultural renaissance. She trained at the Wiener Frauenakademie, the pioneering institution that finally granted women access to the same artistic education as men, including the essential study of the nude. After her marriage to the industrialist Hugo Steiner, the couple became deeply embedded in Vienna’s avant‑garde circles, commissioning Adolf Loos to design their home and maintaining close ties with writers, architects, and artists.

Steiner began exhibiting in 1917 and joined the Hagenbund in 1925, though as a woman she could only enter as an “Extraordinary Member.” Financial losses led the couple to relocate to Paris in 1927, a move that transformed her career. In the more open artistic climate of the French capital, Steiner found her voice among the École de Paris, exhibiting regularly and refining a style that blended Viennese expressiveness with Parisian clarity.

Her work responded sensitively to the political upheavals of the 1930s, and she navigated the war years with quiet resilience, returning to Paris in 1942 and avoiding Nazi persecution. In her later career she turned increasingly to book illustration, lithography, and tapestry design.

Have a look here for one of Egon Schiele’s drawingsof Lilly Steiner: https://schieleandklimt.com/2026/01/29/portrait-of-lilly-steiner-1918-egon-schiele/