Gustav Klimt's 150th Anniversary
In celebration of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's anniversary (1862-1918), museums in Vienna have shown great interest in revisiting and revealing different artistic points of view of the artist, organizing a variety of exhibitions.
The Leopold Museum will exhibit paintings, photographs (taken by the artist in different situations), and 400 letters, written by Klimt to his great friend Emilie Floge, that reveal a humble but fantasy-prone personality. The show, titled Klimt, Intimate and Personal, is on view through August 27, 2012.
The Wien museum presents a compendium of 140 objects whose external richness is impregnated with images from well-known works by Klimt, as well as the museum's complete collection, which includes over 400 works by the artist and his funerary mask. One of the show's greatest appeals is a journey through Klimt's sketches for his best-known works, which give visitors a perspective on the early steps in the artist's creative process and an approach to the development of his work. Klimt. The Wien Museum Collection will be open to the public through September 16th, 2012.
The Belvedere Museum, with the world's largest collection of Gustav Klimt paintings, will devote its space to the exhibition of central works by the artist, such as his famous painting known as "The Kiss", and a documentary about the reconstruction of this particular work. The show, titled Jubilee Exhibition: 150 years Gustav Klimt, will be open through June 6, 2013.
The Secession Gallery (Secession was the name of an artistic movement whose first president was Klimt, founded by the Association of Visual Artists in Austria in response to artistic innovations linked to Modernism) will present the seven panels of Klimt's Beethoven Fresco, which the public will see from a platform 3 meters high.
