gustav klimt contributions to vienna secession

As things stand today, his approximately 250 paintings are complemented by well over 4,000 works on paper, the original number of which was undoubtedly much higher. Gustav Klimt, pioneer of Viennese modernism around 1900, occupies a unique position not just through his golden and colourful paintings but also through his phenomenal drawings.

> Valuation and the Market for Klimt Drawings Without you, this article would not have been possible. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to Dr Marian Bisanz-Prakken from the Albertina in Vienna, whose academic work we greatly admire and who has been kind enough to support us with her expertise since the 1990s. We regularly exhibit his works in our galleries, support museum exhibitions with loans and present our new acquisitions at international art fairs. This webpage is devoted to Klimt’s drawings. These Austrian artists developed the first consistent expression of a psychoanalytical, body-based style of art. Klimt’s groundbreaking achievements and subsequently those of Schiele, Kokoschka and Gerstl are unique by international standards. Together with Richard Gerstl, they formed the nucleus of an independent artistic development in Vienna. Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, whose talent Klimt recognised early on and selflessly promoted, went on to develop his body-focused, psychoanalytical, specifically Viennese style of art in different ways. While producing his works of art, he had to endure unbelievable hostility – the arch-conservatives of Vienna ridiculed him. He called his programmatic work “Nuda Veritas”, which when translated means the “Naked Truth”.

In his search for the “truth” in art, he became the champion of a new image of humanity. Klimt’s conception of man is influenced by the insights of Darwin, Freud’s psychoanalysis and his discussions with Vienna’s intellectuals in the salon of Berta Zuckerkandl.

Gustav klimt contributions to vienna secession