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Gustav Klimt In the early years of Klimt's artistic development, he still shows an attachment to historicism and his teacher Hans Makart. However, he soon began to detach himself more and more from this rigid academic tradition. He was a co-founder of the Vienna Secession in 1897 and also their first president. Klimt played a key role in the development of the international art nouveau movement in Vienna around 1900. Klimt's relationship with women provides rich material for speculation. His family expected him to convey the impression of a reserved family person, although today we know that he was not that reserved - for example, he maintained a close friendship with Emilie Flöge until his death. He also owned a well-known Viennese haute couture fashion salon with her sister and had liaisons with models - which resulted in at least three illegitimate children - as well as with ladies of "higher social standing", such as Adele Bloch-Bauer whose portrait he painted twice. Klimt's attitude to money is best conveyed in one of his own statements - „Money must roll before it interests me.“ He was financially very generous and certainly paid his models very handsomely. One of Klimt's idiosyncrasies was his dread of writing: He would not open his letters for weeks. In fact, he sometimes burned them and would write no more than brief notes to his friend Emilie Flöge. Some of Gustav Klimt's other idiosyncrasies were his love of cats and flowers, and his style of dress - he liked to wear long loose-fitting smocks when working. His eating habits were also legendary; in the evening he would eat copiously - two or three portions. There is even a cookery book about him with the title Zu Gast bei Gustav Klimt. Klimt on himself: „I can paint and draw. There is no self-portrait of me. I'm not interested in my own person - but in other people, women. [...] I paint every day from morning till evening - figure paintings and landscapes, rarely portraits. Even when I have a simple letter to write, I get really frightened as if threatened with sea sickness. Anyone who wants to know about me should look at my paintings carefully to try and recognise from them what I am and want.“ Literature: Frodl, Gottfried. Gustav Klimt. Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1991 Partsch, Susanne. Gustav Klimt - Maler der Frauen (Painter of women). München & New York: Prestel Verlag, 1994 |
 Gustav Klimt, Attersee, 1901. |
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