Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter and the leading figure of the Vienna Secession, a movement of artists who broke from tradition around 1900. Born near Vienna in 1862, he became famous for glittering, decorative paintings, often using real gold leaf, that mix sensuous figures with rich, ornamental pattern. His most beloved work, The Kiss, shows a couple wrapped in a shimmering golden embrace.

He painted dreamlike portraits of fashionable Viennese women and lush, patterned landscapes, all marked by a love of ornament and eroticism. Some of his early public commissions caused scandal for their frank sensuality. Klimt's golden, decorative style became one of the defining looks of turn-of-the-century Vienna and remains hugely popular today.