A survey of the leading artist of Viennese Art Nouveau style offers Klimt's paintings and frescoes along with a commentary about his life and career. This book presents Klimt's entire painted oeuvre and aims to provide viewers with a perspective on one of history's greatest painters.

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This fully annotated catalogue of all the paintings of Gustav Klimt is the result of a preoccupation with the life and work of the exceptional Austrian artist that has endured since 1988. A total of 253 paintings have been discovered, which are introduced here in chronological order of the date of their execution. Almost all of the works are accompanied by a detailed text which essentially consists of the following parts: technical description, provenance, list of important exhibitions, bibliographical section and a short scholarly commentary on the painting in question. In order not to go beyond the scope of this book, a selection has been made of the literature and exhibitions. A complete listing will be included in a catalogue of works in the Klimt archive in Vienna (retrievable in future from the Belvedere). It will also be published on the internet within the next few years in interactive form, enabling researchers themselves to make additions and amplifications. Without the input and meticulous work of my colleagues Michaela Seiser, Eva Winkler, Sibylle Rinnerthaler and Rudolf Hemetsberger the realization of this publication could not have taken place. I wish to express a particular debt of gratitude to them. The Hungarian art historian Johannes Dobai was the first scholar to focus his research on the paintings of Gustav Klimt. Having begun his studies in 1957, in 1967 he published, together with Fritz Novotny, the most authoritative catalogue of the paintings to appear up to the publication of the present volume. Around the same time as Johannes Dobai, in 1958, Alice Strobl began her study of the drawings of Klimt, subsequently dedicating almost her whole life to the artist and his work. She published the results of her comprehensive research into all the media used by Klimt and the biography of the artist in a four-volume catalogue of all the drawings. In our preparatory studies we concentrated initially on researching the artist's early work, which until now had received little attention. Together with his brother Ernst and Franz Matsch, Klimt attended the Kunstgewerbeschule, the School of Applied Arts of the Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna. The three men were in a state of financial difficulty when they founded the 'Kunstlercompagnie' (Artists' Company), which increased their prospects and brought in quite a number of commissions. Klimt's craftsmanlike way of thinking and his practical activity in the 'Compagnie' as decorator and furnisher of theatre buildings and mansions provided the security he later needed in order to master the very largest of formats. The results were the faculty paintings, the Beethoven Frieze and the Stoclet Frieze. Inspired by the familiar landscape of the Attersee in the Salzkammergut, I have been particularly interested from my youth in Klimt's landscape paintings. After intensive on-site research into this genre, a part of Klimt's oeuvre which has until now received little attention, I have been able to gain a number of insights which I first published in 1992. There soon followed the first great Klimt retrospectives, which were devoted to new approaches to the study of his artistic work. Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Tobias Natter and John Collins are at the forefront of this research and their results have been taken into account in this catalogue. Certain facets of the artist about which little has so far been written have also been convincingly presented in this book, with the help of selected scholars. It was a major concern of ours to see, as far as possible, all Klimt's paintings in the original, and to take new photographs of them. In the great majority of cases our wishes were fulfilled. One of the key experiences that enriched and confirmed our view of the total work of Gustav Klimt was the opportunity to study and photograph the Stoclet Frieze in the original. Thank you to the Stoclet family for their understanding; for the first time since 1914 a closer look at this master