Figure 1.--Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most highly regarded of Austria's modern artists. He came from an artistic family. His father was a gold engraver, leaving Gustaf with fascination for gold. He was the best known figure in the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt produced paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. His primary focus was the female body through all his media and stylistic phases. As Klimt's focus was the female body, his work is not of great interest to HBC, but there is one magnificent work on motherhood.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most highly regarded of Austria's modern artists. He came from an artistic family. His father was a gold engraver, leaving Gustaf with fascination for gold. He was the best known figure in the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt produced paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. His primary focus was the female body through all his media and stylistic phases. Among his paintings are boh allegories and portraits--sometimes in the samne work. He painted buildings and landscapes, but is best known for his n symbolist portraits. A strong Japanese influence can be see in his major works. As a young artist, he was a conventional and successful painter of architectural decorations. As he moved toward portaiture and expressed a more personal style, his work began to generate controvery which is why so many were held in private hands. Klimt completed sucessfuly for the prestigious commission to paint the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna. The result was criticized as pornographic. (They would eventully be destoyed by the NAZIs.) As a result of the criticism, Klimt declined any further public commissions. Even so, he achieved even more aclaim with his Golden Phase (using gold leaf) which were purchased by individual collectors. As Klimt's focus was the female body, his work is not of great interest to HBC, but there is one magnificent work on motherhood (figure 1). There is also a connection with World War II and the Holocaust. Because of the controversy with his work, Austrian museums declined to purchase his paintings. His ilimitimate son Gustav Ucicky made anti-Semitic films for the NAZIs. The Austrian National Gallery acquired five of Klint's paintings as a result of the NAZI theft of art owned by Jewish families. This included the portrait of a Jewish socialite (Adele Bloch-Baue), now known as 'The Woman in Gold'. The Museum had no second thoughts about after the War as to how the paintings were acquired, but were eventually forced to return the paintings to the heir of the victimized family. This whole ugly incident and the reluctance of many austrians to come to terms with their NAZI past was made into a suprisingly truthful Hollywood movie -- of course 'Woman in Gold'.

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Created: 7:41 PM 12/18/2015
Last updated: 7:41 PM 12/18/2015