ALBERTINA MODERN Exhibitions Gustav Klimt: The Drawings

Gustav Klimt: The Drawings

Until 17 July 2022

Gustav Klimt | Portrait of a Woman (Study for "Lasciviousness", Beethoven Frieze, Secession, Vienna) | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Portrait of a Lady with Cape and Hat | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

It was 160 years ago, in 1862, that Gustav Klimt was born. And 125 years ago, in 1897, this great Viennese artist joined like-minded colleagues in leaving the Künstlerhaus in order to form a new society of artists, the Vienna Secession, as the spearhead of Vienna’s turn-of-the-century avant-garde. Today, 125 years after he left, Klimt returns to this building—now home to ALBERTINA MODERN. What’s more: Klimt’s return coincides with what is actually his first-ever solo presentation in this historic edifice.

In this exhibition, the public can look forward to highlights from the ALBERTINA MUSEUM’s collection of drawings by Gustav Klimt. The breadth and representative character of the ALBERTINA MUSEUM’s Klimt holdings reveal works from all of the artist’s creative periods as well as preliminary studies for all of his masterpieces—such as the ceiling frescoes at the Burgtheater, the Faculty Paintings, the Beethoven Frieze, and the numerous portraits of Viennese society women; works on the great themes of his life such as love, eros, and death; and the erotic drawings with which he revolutionized the female nude and paved the way for the expressionists Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. A selection of around 100 of Gustav Klimt’s finest drawings celebrates his mastery and his return to the present home of ALBERTINA MODERN.

This exhibition is on view from 9 April to 17 July 2022.

Gustav Klimt | Standing Pair of Lovers, Seen from the Side, 1907/08 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna - The Batliner Collection

Gustav Klimt | Portrait of a Lady in a Cape and Hat, 1897/98 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Standing Pair of Lovers, 1907/08 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna - The Batliner Collection

Gustav Klimt | Study for “Lasciviousness” in the Beethoven Frieze, 1901 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Portrait of a Child (Study for “Allegory of Love”), 1895 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Dame mit Federhut, 1908 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Reclining Seminude, 1914/15 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna

Gustav Klimt | Girl (Juliet) and Hand Studies (Studies for “Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre”, Vienna Burgtheater), 1886/87 | © The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna