Artist

Gustav Klimt

1862–1918 · Austrian

Gustav Klimt emerged from Vienna’s decorative-arts tradition and became the central painter of the Vienna Secession. Trained at the School of Applied Arts, he first worked within the historicist language of public decoration before the controversial University of Vienna Faculty Paintings signaled a decisive break with academic expectations. In 1897 he co-founded the Vienna Secession and served as its first president. Around 1900, Klimt developed the ornamental, flattened and materially sumptuous language of his so-called Golden Period, integrating gold and silver into portraits and allegorical works. At the same time, his summer landscapes around Lake Attersee pushed nature toward dense, almost textile-like surfaces. After leaving the Secession, he continued to work independently until his death in Vienna in 1918.

Painting; drawing; mural and decorative cycles