Gustav Klimt died on 6 February 1918. He did not see the end of the First World War, a turning-point for the whole of Europe. Great European monarchieswere replaced by republics, whilethe Russian revolution gave rise to the world's first communist state. The end of theAustro-Hungarian Empire meant the end of a central European state which had comprised many nations. The Emperor had died in 1916 after a reign of 68 years. When Klimt was born in Vienna in 1862 Emperor Franz Joseph I had already been head of state for 14 years. As a child Klimt experienced the great expansion of Vienna, centre and capital of the dual empire.

Vienna at the turn of the century

A 'total' work of art

The structure of Viennese society

The Emperor's Silver Wedding Jubilee and the Makart pageant

The Ring, and Vienna as a 'total' work of art

Cultural life in Vienna

Jugendstil - art nouveau -

an international movement

Antecedents

England on the way to 'Arts and Crafts'

The development of French painting from Impressionism

to art nouveau

One unifying concept in 'Jugendstil' painting - symbolism

The 'total' work of art

Klimt's early years

Background and training

Hans Makart - Vienna's prince of painters

The 'Company of Artists'

The Burg Theatre ceilings

The murals in the stairway of the Art History Museum

From the Ring to the Secession

The Palais Dumba

Founder-member and president of the

'Vienna Secession'

Conflict among artists

The 'heroic years' of the Secession

Ver Sacrum

The departure of the artists of the new style

Klimt offends public taste

The ceiling pictures in the great hall of the new university

Chronology of events

Designs and completed paintings - a comparison

The Beethoven Frieze

The XlVth exhibition of the Vienna Secession

Max Klinger's Beethoven

Gustav Klimt's Frieze

Emilie FIoge - couturier and companion

The FIoge Sisters' Fashion House

Gustav Klimt and Emilie FIoge

The Vienna Workshops

From foundation to liquidation

Commissions and challenges

The Art Exhibition of 1908

The Palais Stoclet and Gustav Klimt's Frieze

'Woman'

The Portraits

The 'Femme fatale'

'Hope I'

The drawings

'The Kiss' - theme and variations

Landscape painter

Draughtsman

Epilogue - Death and Tribute

Appendix