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This page is an illustrative list of Gustav Klimt's major paintings, and represents a chronological look at some of his main pictorial production. [1] The list is ordered by year and alphabetical order of the title, with brief comments to show Klimt's artistic development.
 |
| Number | Image | Year & Title | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 |  | 1888 – Old Burgtheater in Vienna (oil on canvas, 82 cm × 93 cm) | This painting was made in honor of Gustavo Bentencita, a painter who died on May 16, 1876. The artist was mourning for those past 12 years. Currently, this painting belongs to the San Diego Art Museum |
| 02 |  | 1888–1890 – Sappho (oil on canvas, 39 cm × 31.6 cm) | Representation of the Greek lyric poet born on the island of Lesbos. Still in the sketch stage, this painting fuses the Pre-Raphaelites' influence with the literary and dreamy symbolism of Moreau. Built on orthogonal lines, the canvas is pervaded by an allegoric mythology already present in Klimt's Burgtheater work. The detailed descriptive traits are a consequence of the period's historicism style, celebrating beauty in an atmosphere of refined archaism. [2] |
| 03 |  | 1890 – Portrait of pianist Joseph Pembauer (oil on canvas, 65 cm × 55 cm) | A realistic portrait of pianist and piano teacher, Joseph Pembauer. The photographic realism of the face generates a subtle tension with the symbolism of the stylised elements. In this period, the stylistic dilemma tormenting Klimt between historicism and symbolism is here resolved by the mediation of archaic forms, which attribute to Music (see also No. 5), as identified by the instruments, an absolute and eternal value. [2] [3] |
| 03 |  | 1894 - Portrait of a Woman (oil on canvas, 181 cm × 96.5 cm) | A realistic full-length portrait of a woman in a black dress, painted in 1893 or 1894. [4] At least one source says it is a portrait of Marie Breunig. [5] At least one source uses the title Portrait of a Lady in Black. [6] |
| 04 |  | 1895 – Love (oil on canvas, 60 cm × 44 cm) | For its evanescent rarefaction the love scene reveals its symbolist mould. The work is part of Klimt's series of Allegories and Emblems, whose intent was to translate life's most significant moments, and its psychological nuances, into forms of metaphorical intensity. |
| 05 |  | 1895 – Music I (oil on canvas, 37 cm × 44.5 cm) | Allegoric representation of Music, which Klimt painted several times in various renderings. Besides the lyre, symbol of music, this particular canvas emphasises the sphinx (alluding to artistic freedom), the Silenus mask on the extreme left, the lion's teeth at the centre (a metaphor of the spread of new ideas) and finally the woman's meditative face. |
| 06 |  | 1898 – Portrait of Sonja Knips (oil on canvas, 141 cm × 141 cm) | With a style reminding of the Belgian artist Fernand Khnopff, Klimt paints a lady from the Viennese élite, who was active with her husband in the circle of the Wiener Werkstätte. The face's plasticity contrasts with the soft inconsistency of the fluffy dress. In this diagonal composition, the evanescence of the chair, the book's red blur, the head surrounded by flowers, all anticipate the portraits of the golden period. |
| 07 |  | 1898 – Pallas Athena (oil on canvas, 75 cm × 75 cm) | Enhanced by the golden frame created by Klimt's brother, Georg, the goddess Athena is portrayed in front of a frieze borrowed from a black-figure Attic vase of the 6th century BC. The red hair comes out of the helmet so as to underscore the goddess' femininity, notwithstanding her armour. Following the example of the Munich Secession, Athena is chosen as the patron numen of the Vienna Secession. [2] |
| 08 |  | 1899 – Nuda Veritas (oil on canvas, 252 cm × 56.2 cm) | The frame's upper margin quotes a verse by Schiller, indicating, in its difficult consensus, a distinctive sign of quality: "If you can't please everyone with your deeds and your art – please only a few. To please many is bad. Schiller." Aim of this quote is to incite the Vienna Secession to action. Another version of this work exists as an etching for the magazine Ver Sacrum . The mirror held by Veritas is a modern invitation to "Know yourself", whereas the flowers are symbols of regeneration. [2] |
| 09 |  | 1899 – Garden with chickens in St Agatha (oil on canvas, 80.3 cm × 40 cm) | Also titled After the rain, it was painted at Saint Agatha in Upper Austria and represents a pleasant exception in Klimt's gallery, for the animals it depicts. The oblong format and the particular photographic style affirm their Japanese derivation. The rainy mist enveloping the whole, as well as the ornamental interpretation of every element, recall Whistler's evenescent landscapes. [7] |
| 10 |  | 1901 – Judith and the Head of Holofernes , also known as Judith I [8] (oil on canvas, 84 cm × 42 cm) | The painting depicts the biblical character of Judith holding the severed head of Holofernes. Judith's face exudes a mixed charge of voluptuousness and perversion. Its traits are transfigured so as to obtain the greatest degree of intensity and seduction, which Klimt achieves by placing the woman on an unattainable plane. Notwithstanding the alteration of features, one can recognise Klimt's friend and maybe lover Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of another two portraits respectively done in 1907 and 1912, and also painted in the Pallas Athena . [9] The slightly lifted head has a sense of pride, whereas her visage is languid and sensual, with parted lips in between defiance and seduction. The contrast between the black hair and the golden luminosity of the background enhance elegance and exaltation. The fashionable hairdo is emphasized by the stylised motifs of the trees fanning on the sides. [2] |
| 11 |  | 1902 – Beech Forest (oil on canvas, 100 cm × 100 cm) | The series of Klimt's beech forests corresponds to the one with lakes, created during the same period. repeated are the high horizon, the squarish format, the close-up perspective. The rhythmic disposition of trees, rather than creating optical confusion, plays on the colours' vividness and the trunks' slenderness, so that the viewer is immersed in the scenery. |
| 12 |  | 1901–1902 – Goldfish (To my critics) (oil on canvas, 181 cm × 66.5 cm) | Presented at the XIII Secession Exhibition and at Dresden in 1904, it created such a controversy that Klimt thought to rename it To my critics. The canvas has a symbolic intention and is dominated by the bare back, reminiscent of Rodin. |
| 13 |  | 1903 – Hope I (oil on canvas, 189.2 cm × 67 cm) | The unusual subject and its formal rendition created critical perplexity, so much so that, in order for Klimt to exhibit this work, he had to give it a religious interpretation. The pregnancy theme had already been present in one of the artist's figures in Medicine and the Beethoven Frieze . In 1907–08 Klimt will paint a second version, Hope II , this time with the pregnant woman wearing a highly stylised and geometric dress. |
| 14 |  | 1905 – The Three Ages of Woman (oil on canvas, 180 cm × 180 cm) | This painting won the Prize at the Esposizione d'Arte Internazionale of Rome in 1911 and the following year was purchased by the Roman Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna. The canvas mixes a geometrising decorativism and an unexpected psychological introspection in the expressions of the three figures: the dramatic premonition of death in old age, the tender protectiveness of the young woman, and the contented sleep of the child. |
| 15 |  | 1906 – Portrait of Fritza Riedler (oil on canvas, 153 cm × 133 cm) | One of the most exhibited of Klimt's portraits, it represents the clearest example of his geometrising phase, with its diagonal compositional structure and the almost inconsistent dress. The suggestive contrast between the rhythmic repetition of the decorative symbols and the plasticity of face and hands, evoke the dialectic between figurativism and abstract style typical of this phase in the artist's development. |
| 16 |  | 1904–1907 – Water Snakes (mixed media on vellum, 50 cm x 20 cm) | The Water Snakes were painted using various techniques, from watercolour and tempera to gold leaves on parchment. The composition showed stretched slender figures typical of the Jugendstil, which displayed an abstract illustration of a long-haired woman embracing a serpent-like figure. |
| 17 |  | 1903–1907 – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (oil on canvas, 138 cm × 138 cm) | Both the current holder of the portrait—the Neue Galerie New York—and the art historian Elana Shapira describe how the background and gown contain symbols suggestive of erotica, including triangles, eggs, shapes of eyes and almonds. |
| 18 |  | 1907–1908 – The Kiss (oil on canvas, 180 cm × 180 cm) | A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts Movement. The work is composed of conventional oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance. The painting is now in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere palace, Vienna, and is widely considered a masterpiece of the early modern period. It is a symbol of Vienna Jugendstil—Viennese Art Nouveau—and is considered Klimt's most popular work. [10] |
| 19 |  | 1907–1908 – Danaë (oil on canvas, 77 cm x 83 cm) | Representation of the mythological daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and his wife Queen Eurydice. Danaë was a popular subject in the early 1900s for many artists; she was used as the quintessential symbol of divine love, and transcendence. While imprisoned by her father, King of Argos, in a tower of bronze, Danaë was visited by Zeus, symbolized here as the golden rain flowing between her legs. It is apparent from the subject's face and hands that she is aroused by the golden stream. In this work, she is curled in a sumptuous royal purple veil which refers to her imperial lineage. [11] Many early portrayals of Danaë were erotic; other paintings completed in similar style are Klimt's Medicine (1900– 1907), and No. 16, Water Snakes (1904–1907). [12] |
| 20 |  | 1905–1909 – Tree of Life (carton/panel, 138.8 cm × 102 cm) | Central panel for the mural at the Palais Stoclet in Brussels. The interior of this building was decorated with marble paneling and artworks, [13] and included the mosaic friezes [14] by Klimt and the murals by Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel. [15] This integration of architects, artists, and artisans made Stoclet Palace an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, one of the defining characteristics of Jugendstil. The sketches of Klimt's work for the dining room can be found in the permanent collection of Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna. The panel shows different influences, converging together: from the Byzantine mosaic art to the Japanese prints. But especially dominant is the Egyptian culture, in the posture of the figures and the iteration of the decorative motifs. |
| 21 |  | 1909–1910 – The Park (oil on canvas, 110.5 cm × 110.5 cm) | One of Klimt's paintings closer to abstraction, but not quite embracing it in full. The multiplicity of colours and reedy forms of vegetation infuse a sense of vivaciousness that connects with Nature's life cycle. The focus is a close-up subject, as often occurs in Klimt's landscapes, whereas the execution is reminiscent of exquisite mosaics. [2] |
| 22 |  | 1910 – Lady with Feather Hat (oil on canvas, 79 cm × 63 cm) | Also known as Black Feather Hat, the red hair and the disproportionate hat were already present in Klimt's Lady with Hat and Feather Boa (1909). The unfinished style, unusual for the Austrian artist, seems to recall that of Toulouse-Lautrec, whose work was seen by Klimt in Paris the previous year: this is echoed by the synthesis of the image, lacking any decorative support, and its low tones. [2] |
| 23 |  | 1908–1911 – Death and Life (oil on canvas, 178 cm × 198 cm) | The marked rupture cutting this composition in two parts represents several symbolic motifs: the disquieting and dark image of Death looms over the entangled group of the human bodies, where colour retrieves its decorative vividness. The ascending structure narrates life's salient motifs: from friendship to love, to maternity. The man's brawny physique will inspire Egon Schiele's nudes. [16] |
| 24 |  | 1912–1913 – The Maiden (oil on canvas, 190 cm × 200 cm) | To his usual depiction of aristocracy, Klimt now substitutes erotic allegories, as for Life and Death (No. 22). Here the entanglement of women has lost any realism, as is apparent in the almost skeletal nude on the left, and thus it is absorbed in the decorative scheme. The association of beauty with such unnatural poses, indicates an allusion to life's ephemerality, a reflection of modern society. |
| 25 |  | 1914–1916 – Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt (oil on canvas, 180 cm × 126 cm) | An oriental note dominates in the figurines framing the Baroness. To the pyramidal structure of the subject is accompanied an abstract and serrated syntax, typical of Klimt's last output. Having concluded his "golden phase" since 1909, and overcome the subsequent crisis, the artist rejects Greek or Egyptian modules and concentrates on a joyful chromatic vibrancy, close to Matisse. [2] |
| 26 |  | 1916–1917 – Portrait of a Lady (oil on canvas, 60 cm × 55 cm) | Rendered in a brisk and vivacious style, the portrait is pervaded by a serene spirit, unusual for Klimt. Here he alters the face's realism with bright colour daubes, thus reaching an expressionist style, especially close to Jawlensky's images. However, to the lumpy and violent deformation of his colleagues' brush, Klimt opposes his usual ornamental finery. |
| 27 |  | 1916 – Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer (oil on canvas, 168 cm × 130 cm) | This woman, daughter of the Kaiserbar's owner, was also portrayed Egon Schiele. Klimt portrays her in a dress made by the Wiener Werkstätte. In order to emphasize its pompous style, he replicates the oriental elements of the Baroness at No. 24, taken from a Korean vase of hers. The three clorous at top right – red, white, and black – allude to the Austrian flag and the outbreak of World War I. |
| 28 |  | 1917–1918 – Portrait of Johanna Staude (oil on canvas, 70cm × 50 cm) | Another portrait, where Klimt concentrates on the body upper half, with an arlequin blue motif of leaves in the dress. Unfinished. |
| 29 |  | 1917–18 – Adam and Eve (oil on canvas, 173 cm × 60 cm) | Incomplete painting, it takes a symbolic significance for its biblical subject as well as Eve's facial rendering, with her reclined head and a sweet yet enigmagtic smile. The lower section, with its flowers and background decorativism, is typical of Klimt; the upper section, where the figures are contraposed to a monochrome backdrop, reveals a synthesis of strained lines closer to Schiele's style. [2] |
| 30 |  | c. 1917-18 – Lady with a Fan (oil on canvas | Klimt's last painting. |
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.
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The Vienna Secession is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt. They resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists in protest against its support for more traditional artistic styles. Their most influential architectural work was the Secession exhibitions hall designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich as a venue for expositions of the group. Their official magazine was called Ver Sacrum, which published highly stylised and influential works of graphic art. In 1905 the group itself split, when some of the most prominent members, including Klimt, Wagner, and Hoffmann, resigned in a dispute over priorities, but it continued to function, and still functions today, from its headquarters in the Secession Building. In its current form, the Secession exhibition gallery is independently led and managed by artists.
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Maria Altmann was an Austrian-American Jewish refugee from Austria, who fled her home country after it was annexed to the Third Reich. She is noted for her ultimately successful legal campaign to reclaim from the Government of Austria five family-owned paintings by the artist Gustav Klimt that were stolen by the Nazis during World War II.
The Kiss is an oil-on-canvas painting with added gold leaf, silver and platinum by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. It was painted at some point in 1907 and 1908, during the height of what scholars call his "Golden Period". It was exhibited in 1908 under the title Liebespaar as stated in the catalogue of the exhibition. The painting depicts a couple embracing each other, their bodies entwined in elaborate beautiful robes decorated in a style influenced by the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement.
Hubertus Czernin was an Austrian investigative journalist.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is an oil painting on canvas, with gold leaf, by Gustav Klimt, completed between 1903 and 1907. The portrait was commissioned by the sitter's husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a Viennese and Jewish banker and sugar producer. The painting was stolen by the Nazis in 1941 and displayed at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. The portrait is the final and most fully representative work of Klimt's golden phase. It was the first of two depictions of Adele by Klimt—the second was completed in 1912; these were two of several works by the artist that the family owned.
Adele Bloch-Bauer was a Viennese socialite, salon hostess, and patron of the arts from Austria-Hungary. A Jewish woman, she is most well known for being the subject of two of artist Gustav Klimt's paintings: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, and the fate of the paintings during and after the Nazi Holocaust. She has been called "the Austrian Mona Lisa."
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II is a 1912 painting by Gustav Klimt. The work is a portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881–1925), a Vienna socialite who was a patron and close friend of Klimt.
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Judith and the Head of Holofernes is an oil painting by Gustav Klimt, painted in 1901. It depicts the biblical figure Judith holding the head of Holofernes after beheading him. The beheading and its aftermath have been commonly portrayed in art since the Renaissance, and Klimt himself would paint a second work depicting the subject in 1909.
Hope I is an oil painting created by Gustav Klimt in 1903. It is 189 cm x 67 cm and currently located in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. The main subject of this work is a pregnant, nude female. She is holding her hands together above her stomach and close to her chest. She gazes directly at the viewer and has a great mass of hair with a crown of forget-me-not flowers placed on her head. The scene is beautiful upon first glance but once the viewer's eyes move to the background, deathlike figures become noticeably present.
Woman in Gold is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Alexi Kaye Campbell. The film stars Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern, and Jonathan Pryce.
Anne-Marie O'Connor is an American journalist and writer who authored The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the bestselling story of the battle by Vienna emigre Maria Altmann to reclaim five Gustav Klimt paintings from her native Austria in an eight-year legal battle by Los Angeles attorney E. Randol Schoenberg; a saga that also inspired a Harvey Weinstein movie, Woman in Gold, in which Helen Mirren played Maria Altmann. One of the paintings, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I sold for a record $135 million in 2006, to Ronald Lauder's Neue Galerie New York, where the painting is on view.
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Galerie St. Etienne is a New York art gallery specializing in Austrian and German Expressionism, established in Vienna in 1939 by Otto Kallir. In 1923, Kallir founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna. Forced to leave Austria after the 1938 Nazi invasion, Kallir established his gallery in Paris as the Galerie St. Etienne, named after the Neue Galerie's location near Vienna's Cathedral of St. Stephen. In 1939, Kallir and his family left France for the United States, moving the Galerie St. Etienne to New York City. The gallery still exists, run by Otto Kallir's granddaughter Jane at 24 West 57th Street.
