Erfullung Art Print
Klimt, Gustav
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(1862-1918) Gustav Klimt was born at Baumgarten, Vienna, Austria. He studied at the Vienna School of Arts & Crafts beginning in 1876. At the start of his career, his was a portrait artist, muralist and decorative painter. Klimt formed a company with his brother Ernst and friend Franz Matsch.

From 1882-1885, Klimt's company painted frescoes on ceilings and produced curtains for theatres, and then received commissions to create paintings for the ceilings above the two main staircases at the Burgtheater. Klimt painted four of the 10 paintings between 1886 and 1888. The company continued in its success until the death of Klimt's brother Ernst in 1892.

By this time, Klimt was a highly regarded artist in Vienna. The art establishment, including painters, sculptors and architects, was represented by the Genossenschaft bildender Künstler Wiens (Co-operative of Viennese Painters) in the Künstlerhaus (House of Artists), founded in 1861. In 1887 a new organization formed within that umbrella group. But it ended up breaking off from the Artists' Co-operative over the refusal of that body to exhibit a painting by Josef Engelhart, because it depicted a nude girl. The new group, Vereinigung bildender Künstler Österreichs (Austrian Association of Visual Artists) came to be known as the Secession. Gustav Klimt was its first president.

"Gustav Klimt can ultimately be described as an artist of transition. When one considers his work as a whole, stretching over nearly four decades ... what is initially most striking is how his first works clearly belong to the historicist tradition."¹ Although exposed to the innovations of the Paris art scene, and other striking changes of his era, Klimt personalized these innovations in a way consistent with his own artistic evolution.

In January of 1918, Klimt suffered a stroke. He died on February 6, 1918.

Gustav Klimt Prints & Posters

Art2u News Online:
Gustav Klimt's Last Studio

References:
Klimt by Gerbert Frodl; translation by Alexandra Campbell; Henry Holt and Company; New York, NY
¹ op. cit.; p. 29
World Book Macintosh Edition; Contributor: Pamela A. Ivinski, M.A., Art Historian, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York.