Klimt

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Klimt
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Frank Whitford
SeriesWorld of Art
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:216
Dimensions(mm): Height 210,Width 149
Category/GenreArt nouveau
Art and design styles - Art Deco
Individual artists and art monographs
ISBN/Barcode 9780500202463
ClassificationsDewey:759.36
Audience
General
Undergraduate
Illustrations 130 Illustrations, black and white; 29 Illustrations, color

Publishing Details

Publisher Thames & Hudson Ltd
Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publication Date 17 September 1990
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Gustav Klimt's work brilliantly negotiates the borders between the traditional and the modern, the figurative and non-figurative. 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 Biography

Frank Whitford was an art historian and critic, and one of Britain's leading experts on 20th-century German and Austrian art. During his varied career, he lectured on the history of art at University College London and Homerton College, Cambridge, wrote several books and served as a newspaper art critic. From 1983 onwards he was a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge.