Details of the Artist

Gustav Klimit
An Austrian painter and graphic artist, and the first President of the Vienna Sezession.
Early in his career he was highly successful as a painter of sumptuous decorative schemes in the grandiose tradition of Makart, whose staircase decoration in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna Klimit completed after Makarat's death in 1884.
In this and other schemes, he worked in collaboration with his brother Ernst (1864 - 1892) and Franz Matsch (1861 - 1942), who had been fellow students at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Art) in Vienna.
In spite of his official academic successes, Klimit was drawn to avant-garde art, and he came under the influence of Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau.
Discontent with the conservative attitudes of the Viennese Artists' Association led him and a group of friends to resign in 1897 and set up their own organization, the Sezession, of which he was elected President.
His role as a leader of the avant-garde was confirmed when his allegorical mural paintings for Vienna University (1900 - 3) aroused great hostility, being called nonsensical and pornographic.
He abandonned the commission in 1905 and the paintings were destroyed by fire in 1945.
Although official commissions dried up after this he continued to be much in demand with private patrons, as a portraitist as well as a painter of mythological and allegorical themes.
He was highly responsive to female beauty (he was a great womanizer) and in both his portraits and his subject pictures he stresses the allure and mystery of womanhood. Notable examples are the magnificent full-length portrait of Emilie Floge (his sister-in-law and mistress) in the Historisches Museum der Stadt, Vienna (1902) and Judith 1 (Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna, 1901), one of the archetypal images of the femme fatale.
Characteristically, the figures in Klimit's paintings are treated more or less naturalistically but embellished....in the background or their clothing.....with richly decorative patterns recalling butterfly or peacock wings, creating a sensuality.
His work was particularly influential on Kokoschka and Schiele.

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Tudor Tapestry
Flanders, covering parts of modern-day Belgium, Holland and France, was one of the great cultural centers of Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries, and was particularly famed for its tapestries.
It is in this region that fine reproductions are still woven.

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The Accolade
The Accolade a ceremony that conferred Knighthood in medieval times that at one time consisted of an embrace. Though this gentle maiden uses the subsequent ritual of lightly touching the candidate's shoulder with a sword, a highly romantic aspect pervades the entire work.
This replica on canvas of the famous 1901 painting is absolutely breathtaking.

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September Morn
This tranquil landscape with a lovely nude model created a scandal when it was shown in an art dealer's window in New York City.
It won the Medal of Honor for artist Paul Chabas at the Paris Salon of 1912.
When it arrived in the U.S. for sale, it created a storm of controversy.
The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice ordered its removal from display, but the notoriety actually helped assure its popularity and its place as one of the most reproduced paintings in history.

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Mother and Child
This intimate image of a mother and child was painted by the English master Frederic Leighton around 1865.
It is in a style based on contemporary French painting and the 17th century Italian masters.

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Dream of Acadia
Thomas Cole was a "Romantic Landscape Artist". He founded the Hudson River School. When he migrated with his family to America from England he became passionatly devoted to the scenery of his new country.

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The Accolade
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