Gustav Klimt

1862-1918

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) worked at the center of Vienna's modern art revolution. Beginning as a decorator of theaters and public buildings in the 1880s, he helped establish the Vienna Secession in 1897 and served as its first president, championing new approaches to design and ornament. His University of Vienna ceiling paintings—Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence—sparked fierce controversy for their frank treatment of the human body and rejection of academic idealism, leading him to abandon public commissions. Instead, Klimt developed his distinctive "golden phase," adorning portraits and allegories with gold leaf in an Art Nouveau idiom influenced by Japanese art. His paintings explore eros, mortality, and the female figure with unflinching sensuality. Though he worked primarily as a portraitist of Vienna's elite, his landscapes and drawings reveal equal sophistication. Klimt died in Vienna during the 1918 influenza pandemic.