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Gustav Klimt, Frauenbildnis
Jul. 20th, 2013 01:30 pmFrauenbildnis (Portrait of a Woman), 1917-18, Oil and charcoal on canvas. Gustav Klimt, Austrian, born 1862, died 1918.
In 1897 Gustav Klimt helped form the Vienna Secession, a group of artists, architects, and designers who led Austria into a new leadership of advanced thinking. They were part of a remarkable brain pool in that city around 1900 that included novelist Stefan Zweig, composer Gustav Mahler and, most famously, Sigmund Freud.
Klimt often worked on a large scale, including three state-sponsored murals for the University of Vienna that brought him fame, despite their powerful sensuality that caused a public outcry. During the last years of his life, his greatest attention was given to portraiture, commissioned by the most sophisticated and wealthy members of Viennese society. These works are tremendously complex and demanding, allowing the evocation of the subject (nearly always women) through a wash of bold patterns drawn from Asian textiles and Japanese screen paintings. They reach an opulence and outright splendor often described as Byzantine.
Frauenbildnis (Portrait of a Woman) was begun in 1917 and left unfinished in Klimt's studio at his death in February 1918. It is thought to be his third work to portray Maria ("Ria") Munk, the daughter of Alexander and Aranka Pulitzer Munk, who had shot herself in 1911 at the age of 24, in despair over a lover. Recalled youth and departed beauty have few equals in the history of art.
On loan from The Lewis Collection, displayed in Gallery 158, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
This is one of many works of art stolen by the Nazis. Some of Klimt's most monumental work was destroyed just before the war's end. It was returned to the owner's heirs by the Austrian government and sold recently for a monumental sum.
In 1897 Gustav Klimt helped form the Vienna Secession, a group of artists, architects, and designers who led Austria into a new leadership of advanced thinking. They were part of a remarkable brain pool in that city around 1900 that included novelist Stefan Zweig, composer Gustav Mahler and, most famously, Sigmund Freud.
Klimt often worked on a large scale, including three state-sponsored murals for the University of Vienna that brought him fame, despite their powerful sensuality that caused a public outcry. During the last years of his life, his greatest attention was given to portraiture, commissioned by the most sophisticated and wealthy members of Viennese society. These works are tremendously complex and demanding, allowing the evocation of the subject (nearly always women) through a wash of bold patterns drawn from Asian textiles and Japanese screen paintings. They reach an opulence and outright splendor often described as Byzantine.
Frauenbildnis (Portrait of a Woman) was begun in 1917 and left unfinished in Klimt's studio at his death in February 1918. It is thought to be his third work to portray Maria ("Ria") Munk, the daughter of Alexander and Aranka Pulitzer Munk, who had shot herself in 1911 at the age of 24, in despair over a lover. Recalled youth and departed beauty have few equals in the history of art.
On loan from The Lewis Collection, displayed in Gallery 158, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
This is one of many works of art stolen by the Nazis. Some of Klimt's most monumental work was destroyed just before the war's end. It was returned to the owner's heirs by the Austrian government and sold recently for a monumental sum.
