Klimt

Gustav Klimt's work brilliantly negotiates the borders between traditional and modern, figurative and nonfigurative. His subtly erotic portraits, richly patterned landscapes and enigmatic allegorical compositions are at once sensuous and refined, while his extravagant, ornamental style verges on abstraction. Obliged to go his own way when he was denied public commissions, Klimt became the leader of the modernists in Vienna, perhaps the greatest portraitist of his age, a landscape painter of dazzling originality and, above all, the creator of extraordinary decorative schemes. Frank Whitford examines the artist's work against the background of his time - the tragic final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the light shed by political and cultural history, Klimt's paintings and personality emerge with new clarity.

Author: Frank Whitford
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Extra Details: Pictorial Card Covers 6 x 9 inches tall,216 Pages, Lavishly illustrated with Colour and B&W photos throughout.