TASCHEN's Great Adventure began back in 1980, when eighteen-year old Benedikt Taschen opened a shop in his native Cologne, Germany, to market his massive comics collection. Within a year he began publishing catalogues promoting his wares, but it wasn't until 1984 that his first artbook breakthrough occurred: he purchased 40,000 remainder copies of a Magritte book printed in English, reselling them for a fraction of their original price. From a young age, Taschen had been interested in art but found that art books were too expensive and hard to obtain, and the success of this daring move proved that Taschen was not alone in thinking that the art-book market should be democratized.

TASCHEN's Great Adventure began back in 1980, when eighteen-year old Benedikt Taschen opened a shop in his native Cologne, Germany, to market his massive comics collection. Within a year he began publishing catalogues promoting his wares, but it wasn't until 1984 that his first artbook breakthrough occurred: he purchased 40,000 remainder copies of a Magritte book printed in English, reselling them for a fraction of their original price. From a young age, Taschen had been interested in art but found that art books were too expensive and hard to obtain, and the success of this daring move proved that Taschen was not alone in thinking that the art-book market should be democratized. Soon he began reprinting books under his own name for budget prices and the next year he published his first original title and the first book in the Basic Art series:Picasso. Before long, high-quality-yet-still-inexpensive hardcover bookswere added to the lineup and in 1989 the landmark double-jumbo Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings hit bookstores around the world.

Introduction:

Klimt's Popularity

Klimt's Fame

Klimt's Vienna - Then and

Now

Years of Training

Early Works and the

Beginning of a Career

Early Portraits

"Oedipal Revolt"

the Secession

Modernity

The Faculty Paintings

Early Landscapes

The Secession Building and

its Exhibitions

The Beethoven Frieze

The Kiss

The Three Ages of Woman / Death and Life

Hope

Judith

The Stoclet Frieze

The Break-Up of the

Secession and the I908

Kunstschau exhibition

"I'm not particularly

interesting"

Landscapes

"S olitary Dialogue s":Klimt's Erotic Drawings

"The World in Female

Form"

Danae

Ladies' Portraits

Late Works

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography