Klimt

Description

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

Catherine Dean trained at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She was Editor of the Art Book Review Quarterly and is the author of Cézanne (1991), also in the Colour Library series.

On the Colour Library Series

“Ideal introductions for students and museum-goers.”—Independent

“Phaidon’s excellent Colour Library series: […] a good introduction to nearly 50 key artists and movements in art history.”—Antiques Trade Gazette

“The Phaidon Colour Library Series provides an invaluable introduction to key artists and movements in art history.”—Art & Craft

Additional information