“I am a painter who paints day after day, from morning until evening.”
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt, a renowned painter and illustrator, rose from the son of a poor engraver to the status of the most adored, and soon the most notorious Viennese painter. He is the author of many symbolist wall paintings, portraits and landscapes, but above all he was a champion of the Viennese Art Nouveau.
Gustav Klimt was devoted to experimentation and in his works of art he was increasingly concerned with the blurred dividing line between the psychic inner world and external reality. This inner world became the essence of his late art, increasingly oriented towards symbolism and abstraction, which we see today in the famous portraits of Fritze Riedler, Margaret Stonborogh-Wittgenstein or Adele Bloch-Bauer. Women were always the center of Gustav Klimt‘s art, he never favored men, they were just generic figures turned away. But he never got married. Marriage to art was enough for him and he died in this marriage in 1918.
Especially in German art critics, the work of Gustav Klimt in the first half of the 20th century was either partially or completely ignored, or labeled as purely decorative painting. Only later was his static flat art recognized as art that indicates the development of modern art (e.g. cubism).
The painting Poljub – The Kiss and the painting Adele Bloch-Bauer are on the list of the ten most reproduced paintings in the history of art.