Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918) was the founding president of the Vienna Secession, the group of artists who in 1897 broke from the conservative Austrian arts establishment to pursue a synthesis of fine art and decorative design under the motto Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit — "To every age its art, to art its freedom." Born in Vienna in 1862 to a gold engraver, Klimt absorbed his father's craft into his painting practice, developing a style that layered representational figures against flat, richly ornamented backgrounds drawing on sources as diverse as ancient Egyptian art, Greek vase painting, and Japanese prints. He died in 1918 following a stroke, leaving several major canvases unfinished; his influence on Art Nouveau and on the broader decorative ambitions of European modernism was enormous and immediate.
