Born in 1862 near Vienna, Klimt’s family — his father and his brothers — would play vital roles in shaping the artist. 

Trained at what would become the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Gustav, his brother Ernst, and their friend Franz von Matsch first worked together on interiors. They painted ceiling murals and theatre curtains. In 1888, this partnership finished their work inside the Burgtheater. For this work, Emperor Franz Joseph I awarded Klimt the Gold Cross of Merit, the highest artistic merit in the country.

This was Gustav’s first step into the high society and public acclaim of his home city.

Four short years later, both Klimt’s father and his brother Ernst passed away. Grief seems to have consumed him in the period that followed. 

He assumed responsibility for his family and his brother’s, producing little work, before emerging right at the end of the 19th century with a far more developed personal style with pieces like Ancient Greece, Egypt (both 1891), Pallas Athene (1898), and Nuda Veritas (1899) that marked the fresh start of Klimt’s new voice.

With this renewed vigour, Klimt established with his contemporaries a rebellious art movement known as Viennese Secession. This avant-garde collective rejected stale, academic tradition and turned instead to this localised version of Art Nouveau.

More than just a founding member, Gustav Klimt was the first president of the Secession. The movement created the Viennese Secession building, an architectural manifesto for their vision — one that still stands today. Inside, Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze remains one of his most celebrated large-scale works.

Klimt’s Golden Phase began in the early 1900s, inspired by the lavish ornamentality of the Byzantines. Though Klimt rarely travelled, he made several important trips throughout Europe to exhibit during this period. On these trips he found his way to Ravenna and Venice in particular and it was there he met the gold mosaics of early Christian churches. Their impact on him was profound and would inspire the next distinct period of the artist’s career.

Using gold leaf as a medium, Gustav Klimt became known through this period as a “painter of women.” Each year, he produced one large-format portrait of a woman taking inspiration from allegory and the Old Testament. More than just artistic fame, the Golden Phase made Gustav Klimt a wealthy critical darling across Europe. At the same time, he was particularly close to his female clients and, unmarried, he entertained discreet affairs. During his life, he would father at least fourteen children.

His masterpiece The Kiss (1907-1908) emerged during the Golden Phase. This glowing embrace of pattern and passion, remains one of the most beloved images in Western art.

Other works from this period, such as Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) solidified Klimt’s reputation as an artist of women. Whether clothed in gold or nude, his models were objects of beauty at the same time as individuals with power, mystery, and rich inner lives.

While best known for his figurative work, Klimt was an avid landscape painter. Anselm Wagner writes that, “Klimt's Attersee paintings are of sufficient number and quality to merit a separate appreciation.”

Lake Attersee in Upper Austria was Klimt’s regular summer vacation. From the late 1890s, he travelled frequently with life partner Emilie Louise Flöge and her family to the region.

There, away from the formality of the city, he painted the forested shorelines, wildflowers, and tranquil waters about him. These landscapes, vibrant with colour and dense with pattern, revealed a more subdued man. For his intense focus and reclusive nature, Attersee’s villagers titled him the Waldschrat:

The “Forest Demon”.

Though much of Klimt’s private life remains mysterious, his impact on art is undeniable. He ushered in a new age of Austrian artists and helped steer the direction of modernism itself.

He mentored younger artists like Egon Schiele and developed local Austrian talent. In 1917, he helped establish the Kunsthalle (literally “Art Hall”) — an exhibition space to support local artists and stop them from needing to leave to find success.

In 1918, Gustav Klimt died. His work continued to sell exceptionally well. Even after the looting of many pieces by the Nazis from Jewish Austrian families during the Second World War, the century since his death has seen his paintings set records at auction.

Indeed: in 2006, Adele Bloch-Bauer I sold for US$135 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting to that time.

Not just an decorator, Gustav Klimt was a challenger. His art bridged the old-world grandeur of the nineteenth century with the vibrant individualism of the early twentieth century’s modernism. 

Whether he was depicting two lovers wrapped in gold or showing the Attersee forests in the early morning light, Klimt created a world more beautiful than it was when he arrived.

Explore Inka Arthouse’s curated selection of Gustav Klimt’s wall art prints to bring a piece of the Forest Demon’s Golden Phase into your own home.