Gustav Klimt

gold and ornament

In his „Golden Period“ Klimt covered his pictures with real gold leaf and flat ornament.

💡 Did you know? Klimt's father was a gold engraver: working with gold was literally in the family.

Vienna Secession

Their motto: "To every age its art, to art its freedom."

💡 Did you know? As first president of the Vienna Secession, Klimt championed its motto: „To every age its art, to art its freedom.“

Art Nouveau

Klimt is regarded as the foremost painter of Viennese Art Nouveau around 1900.

💡 Did you know? His sensual, erotic pictures caused repeated scandals: faculty paintings for the University of Vienna were rejected as „pornography.“

The Kiss

A pair of lovers merge in a cloak of golden ornament.

💡 Did you know? „The Kiss“ hangs in Vienna and is so beloved that its motif appears on countless posters, mugs and pieces of jewellery.

Vienna

Klimt lived and worked his whole life in Vienna, the centre of art around 1900.

💡 Did you know? Klimt never married but had many relationships: after his death 14 alleged children came forward.

1918

Klimt died in 1918 from a stroke and the Spanish flu: the same year as several fellow Viennese artists.

💡 Did you know? The story of the "Golden Adele" was even made into a film.

The Kiss

Around 1907/08: peak of the "Golden Period", one of the most famous pictures in the world.

💡 Did you know? The golden lovers at the flowery precipice are seen as the peak of Klimt's „Golden Period.“

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Around 1907: the famous "Golden Adele".

💡 Did you know? The „Golden Adele,“ after a restitution dispute over Nazi-looted art, sold in 2006 for 135 million dollars: a record at the time.

Judith I

Painted around 1901.

💡 Did you know? Klimt shows the biblical Judith as a modern, blissfully smiling Viennese woman: half heroine, half femme fatale.

The Three Ages of Woman

Painted around 1905.

💡 Did you know? Child, young woman and old crone side by side: Klimt's meditation on transience.

Woman With a Fan

Painted around 1917.

💡 Did you know? Klimt's last finished work still stood on the easel when he died; in 2023 it fetched over 100 million euros.

The Maidens

Painted around 1913.

💡 Did you know? A tangle of sleeping women in swirling ornament: dream and sensuality.

Death and Life

Painted around 1910.

💡 Did you know? Death as a skeleton lurks at the edge of the colourful round of life: Klimt won a prize in Rome with it in 1911.

Adele Bloch-Bauer II

Painted around 1912.

💡 Did you know? Klimt painted the same woman twice: Adele was the only one to whom he devoted two full portraits.

Beethoven Frieze

Painted around 1901.

💡 Did you know? The 34-metre wall frieze was a homage to Beethoven's 9th Symphony and meant for a single exhibition only.

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer

Painted around 1914.

💡 Did you know? The Lederer family owned Klimt's largest collection: much of it burned in a castle in 1945.

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt (1862 to 1918) was the foremost painter of Viennese Art Nouveau, famous for his gold-gleaming, sensual pictures like „The Kiss.“

💡 Did you know? Behind Klimt's glittering portraits of women stood a reclusive man who shunned interviews: „Whoever wants to know about me should look at my pictures.“