Gustav Klimt Biography and Artwork

Gustav Klimt, a prominent Austrian symbolist painter, was born in Vienna in 1862. Klimt was the founding president of the Vienna Secession movement, that played an important role in shaping the era around 1900. Throughout his life he had to support his lower middle-class family financially.

Klimt’s art was marked by frank sexuality and primarily focused on painting the female body, which made him an important figure of the Art Nouveau movement worldwide. His works included paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d’art.

At age 14 he received a scholarship for the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule where he studied decorative arts. He came from a family of artists as his father Ernst Klimt was a gold engraver from Bohemia and his mother Anna Finster was an ambitious but failed musical artist.

Klimt’s legacy remained present throughout Austria beyond death in 1918.The Monument against War and Fascism erected in his honor can still be found at Hohen Market in Vienna today.

All Gustav Klimt Artwork on Artchive

Artwork Name Year Medium
Nude Veritas 1899 Oil on Canvas
Judith I 1901 Oil on Canvas
Water Serpents II 1904-07 Oil on Canvas
Judith II 1909 Oil on Canvas
Medicine (composition draft) 1897-98 Oil on Canvas
The Three Ages of Woman 1905 Oil on Canvas
Hope II 1907 - 1908 Oil on Canvas
Hope I 1903 Oil on Canvas
Danae 1907 - 1908 Oil on Canvas
Joseph Pembauer 1890 Oil On Canvas
Mermaids (whitefish) c. 1899 Oil On Canvas
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I 1907 Oil on Canvas
Death and Life 1908 - 1916 Oil on Canvas
Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi 1913 Oil on Canvas
Portrait of Fritza Riedler 1906 Oil on Canvas
The Kiss 1907 - 1908 Oil on Canvas
The Kiss 1907 - 1908 Oil on Canvas
Head of a Recumbent Man, Supporting Himself 1886-88 Black chalk, highlighted in white
Garden Path with Chickens 1916 Oil on Canvas
Beethoven Frieze 1902 Casein paint on plaster
Hygeia 1900 - 1907 Oil on Canvas
Music I 1895 Oil on Canvas
Portrait of a Lady (Frau Heymann) c. 1894 Oil on wood
Portrait of Mada Primavesi c.1912 Oil on Canvas
Poster for the 1st Secession exhibition 1898 Lithograph
Pallas Athene 1898 Oil on Canvas
Portrait of Emilie Floge 1902 Oil on Canvas
Serpents I 1904-07 Watercolors and gold paint on parchment
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