Gustave Klimt (1862-1918) was one of the most brilliant artists of the
Austrian avant-garde. Admired for his sensual images of women and for
his powerful and original vision, he produced some of the most haunting
and evocative images of all time, including The Kiss, Love and The
Three Ages of Woman, all of which are included in this perfect
introduction to the artist's work.
Klimt started out as a decorator, opening a studio with his brother
Ernst. Some of his most famous commissions were for murals, including
the magnificent Beethoven Frieze, painted for the exhibition of Max
Klinger's statue of Beethoven, and the monumental ceiling paintings for
the auditorium of Vienna University, which shocked a conservative
public. A founder of Vienna Secession, the band of artists who resigned
from the established art bodies to form their own group, Klimt became
the principal painter of the Art Nouveau movement, painting glittering
portraits of fashionable Viennese society as well as