Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist oil painting artist
and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau
(Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include oil paintings,
murals, sketches and other art objects, many of which are on
display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject is
the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. His
pencil drawings, which are very numerous, have been regarded by
many as his greatest legacy.
Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna, Austria, the
second of seven children. His father (Ernst Klimt) was an engraver
and was married to Anna Klimt (neé Finster). He lived in poverty
for most of his childhood. He was one of seven children - 6 boys
and one girl - Joanna.
He was educated at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts
(Kunstgewerbeschule) in the years 1879?1883 and received training
as an architectural decorator. He began his professional career
painting interior murals in large public buildings on the
Ringstraße. Klimt was also an honorary member of the Universities
of Munich and Vienna.
In 1893, Klimt was commissioned to do three paintings to decorate
the ceiling of the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. His
three paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence were
criticized for their radical themes and 'pornographic' material
resulting in their not being displayed on the ceiling of the great
Hall. All three paintings were eventually destroyed by retreating
SS forces in May 1945. This would also be the last time Klimt
accepted any public commissions to do work.
His work is distinguished by the elegant gold or colored
decoration, often phallic in shape that conceals the more erotic
positions of the drawings he based many of his paintings on. This
can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?1908), and
especially in Danaë (1907). Art historians note an eclectic range
of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including
Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations.
Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, late
medieval European painting, and Japanese Ukiyo-e. His works are
also characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles,
and the use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological
ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.
Klimt was one of the founding members of the Wiener Sezession
(Vienna Secession) and of the periodical Ver Sacrum. He left the
movement in 1908.
Klimt took annual summer holidays on the shores of Attersee and
painted some of the landscapes he saw there. He died in Vienna on
February 6, 1918 of a stroke and was interred at the Hietzing
Cemetery, Vienna. Numerous paintings were left unfinished.
Klimt's paintings have brought some of the highest prices of any
works of art. In November of 2003, Klimt's Landhaus am Attersee
sold for $29,128,000, but that was soon to pale next to the prices
paid for two other Klimts. Purchased for the Neue Galerie in New
York by Ronald Lauder for a reported US $135 million, the 1907
portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" deposed Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a
Pipe" (sold May 5, 2004 for $104 million) as the world's most
expensive painting, on or around June 19, 2006. This is one of the
five paintings referred to below in the Legacy section and an NPR
report. On August 7, 2006 Christie's auction house announced it was
handling the sale of the remaining four of five works by Austrian
artist Gustav Klimt that were recovered by the Bloch-Bauer heirs
after a long legal battle. They auctioned "Portrait of Adele
Bloch-Bauer II" in November 2006 for $88 million, the third-highest
priced piece of art at auction at the time.
Please visit our gallery of
Gustav Klimt Oil Painting Reproduction.
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