A portfolio of lithographs of life sketches by
Gustav Klimt
(1862-1918)
Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil as illustrated by these lithographs. Klimt’s graphic studies, some are very graphic indeed, show his creative effort, which had considerable influence on his contemporaries.
Unlike his paintings, Klimt's drawings centre on his model’s spontaneous temporary postures and movements. These drawings created between 1888-1918 reveal his mastery of the delineation the female human form by simple line interpretation, his props being minimal, usually confined to pillows or drapery. The result being studies that are almost trance like, the sensuous folds in the drapery suggesting depth or volume to create an impression of bodily substance.
As his work progressed through the first decade of the 20th. century, the addition of coloured chalk to the graphite line, along with ringlets and loops add a sensuality to his life drawings. In his later studies his creative genius displays a synthesis of form and statement, reality and imagination. No wonder he was considered a genius of the then new movement in art, especially when viewed through his finished paintings. But the essence of that genius lies within these studies.
The portfolio comprises of over twenty lithographs published in 1964 which individually, have now become very collectable as they are still quite reasonably affordable.
