“Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900-1918 examines the artist’s sensual portraits of women as the embodiment of fin-de-siècle Vienna. The exhibition includes approximately 12 paintings, 40 drawings, 40 works of decorative art, and vintage photographs of Klimt, drawn from public and private collections worldwide. Central to the exhibition will be the display of Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which will be shown side-by-side for the first time since 2006.

The influence of fashion design among society women in fin-de-siècle Vienna will also play a key role in the installation. Shanghai-based artist and designer Han Feng has been commissioned to create three one-of-a-kind fashion ensembles inspired by prevailing styles of artistic reform dress and the designs of Emilie Flöge, an important Viennese fashion designer and Klimt’s muse. Special hats and style accessories by paper artist Brett McCormack will also adorn full-scale mannequins located throughout the show.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was a central figure in the cultural life of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, and provided a crucial link between nineteenth-century Symbolism and the beginning of Modernism. Klimt’s iconic Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), on permanent display at the Neue Galerie, will be accompanied by a significant group of preparatory drawings for the painting, which he created beginning in 1903. The show will include a unique historical reproduction (1951) of the mid-sixth century mosaic of Empress Theodora from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, which provided Klimt with an important point of inspiration for the first portrait of his patron Adele Bloch-Bauer.” — Neue Galerie

Portrait of Szerena Lederer, 1899. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Wolfe Fund, and Rogers and Munsey Funds, Gift of Henry Walters, and Bequests of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe and Collis P. Huntington, by exchange, 1980.

Portrait of Gertha Loew, 1902. Oil on canvas. The Lewis Collection.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907. Gold, silver, and oil on canvas. Neue Galerie New York. Acquired through the generosity of Ronald S. Lauder, the heirs of the Estates of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer, and the Estée Lauder Fund.

Portrait of Mäda Primavesi, 1912. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of André and Clara Mertens, in memory of her mother, Jenny Pulitzer Steiner, 1964.

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, 1914-16. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

Portrait of Ria Munk III, 1917 (unfinished). Oil and charcoal on canvas. The Lewis Collection.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, 1912. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

The show is organized by Klimt scholar Dr. Tobias G. Natter, author of numerous publications about Gustav Klimt and the art of Vienna 1900, including the indispensable catalogue raisonnée of Klimt’s paintings, published in 2012.

Images courtesy Neue Galerie.