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The Strange & Magic Art of Gustav Klimt |
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Contributed by Shawn Campbell
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 Adele Bloch-Bauer
Gustav Klimt began his career as an artist in 1883 when he formed Kanstlercompanie (an organization consisting of a group of artists) with his brother Ernest and a friend named Franz Matsch. They were commissioned by theatres, museums and churches to decorate the walls with murals and paintings. One of Klimt's most famous paintings Tragedy was commissioned by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
 'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt paintings are distinguished visually by their elegant gold backgrounds and mosaïc patterns. Thematically, Klimt celebrates life, as demonstrated in The Kiss, a popular painting of a couple embracing passionately. However, at times, his paintings also juxtapose the joy of life with the certainty of death. Paintings such as Hope (a pregnant woman surrounded by pale solemn faces) offer the viewer a unique and profound experience of happiness at the beauty of life and sadness at the inevitability of death simultaneously. Gustav Klimt died of pneumonia in Vienna in 1918. Fortunately for the world, his work lives on.
Shawn Campbell is an online art connoisseur who has been writing about art prints and researching artist biographies since 2000. Most of his writings can be found at Aaron Art Prints and Aaron Posters .
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 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt
June 19, 2006: "A 1907 Gustav Klimt portrait of Vienna aristocrat Adele Bloch-Bauer looted by the Nazis and recently returned to a Los Angeles woman and her relatives has been sold to a small New York museum for the highest known price ever paid for a painting.
"The sale of 'Adele Bloch-Bauer I' dashes hopes that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art - which has been displaying the work and four other Klimts since April 4 - might acquire the picture itself. Cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder bought the painting on behalf of the museum he founded, the Neue Galerie. While the exact sales price remains unclear, the Los Angeles attorney representing Maria Altmann and four other heirs said Sunday that Lauder paid the highest known price for a painting.
"Until now, the high-water mark was $104.1 million, paid in 2004 by an unnamed auction bidder at Sotheby's for Picasso's 'Boy With a Pipe.' The New York Times, which first reported the sale of the Klimt, said the work sold for $135 million."
Visit: Steve Goddard's History Wire.
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