Gustav Klimt & K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei

The Kiss, no. 1 from the fifth installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts Undoubtedly Klimt’s best known and most reproduced images, this printed version of The Kiss is the only one with which Klimt was directly involved. Unveiled at Vienna’s Kunstschau 1908, and saved for the fifth and final delivery of Das Werk, The Kiss marks a triumph in Klimt’s career and represents a culmination of many themes in his oeuvre up to that point. After all of the controversy surrounding the State’s prior rejection of the University murals commissioned from Klimt, the Ministry of Education reversed their policy toward the artist with a show of wholehearted support by purchasing for the Osterreichische Galerie BelvedereThe Kiss while it still hung in the Kunstschau exhibit. Considered in relation to the eight multicolored collotypes which preceded its print debut in the Das Werk portfolio, The Kiss literally embraces all which came before it. The golden seaweed dangling in tresses from the lovers’ feet harkens back to Water Snakes I and II. The bed of flowers evokes the settings Klimt created in both The Golden Knight and The Sunflower. In fact, this image sprung out of a particularly happy summer spent in the company of Klimt’s lover, Emilie Floge...

Judith I, no. 9 from the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts Much like his treatment of the Classical personage, Danae, from Greek mythology, Klimt’s depiction of Judith takes an Old Testament character, a heroine who avenges the death of her husband by killing an Assyrian king, and firmly positions her in his present-day Vienna. His multicolored collotype rips the canvas from its gilded frame which directly references the subject with its title: “Judith und Holofernes”. Now in print form, Judith, holding the severed head of a male in murky shadow, is the ultimate Viennese femme fatale. Her likeness is unmistakably similar to a former lover of Klimt’s and famous Viennese soprano, Anna von Mildenburg. Though his allusion to ancient Assyria is apt, Klimt literally lifted the gold patterned background’s design motif from a relief detail from Sennacherib’s Palace displayed in a London museum. His context then is contemporary. In a sensual and sexually powerful tour de force, Klimt’s Judith...

DAS WERK GUSTAV KLIMTS, a portfolio of 50 prints, ten of which are multicolor collotypes on chine colle paper laid down on hand-made heavy cream wove paper with deckled edges; under ...

Danaë, no. 2 from the fourth installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts Danae originates from Greek mythology. She is the daughter of the King of Argos. Because a...

This listing is for a single print, pictured, from the Das Werk portfolio by Gustav Klimt and k.k. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei, published by H.O. Miethke. Gu...

DAS WERK GUSTAV KLIMTS, a portfolio of 50 prints, ten of which are multicolor collotypes on chine colle paper laid down on hand-made heavy cream wove paper with deckled edges; under ...

DAS WERK GUSTAV KLIMTS, a portfolio of 50 prints, ten of which are multicolor collotypes on chine colle paper laid down on hand-made heavy cream wove paper with deckled edges; under ...

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, no. 10 from the first installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts His confidante and life companion of more than 30 years, Klimt capt...