While Klimt’s stay in Grado has not yet been proven, artists and patrons of Vienna’s fin de siècle, including Josef Maria Auchentaller, Otto Wagner, Friedrich Ohmann and the Bloch-Bauer family, liked to gather there. At the invitation of the city of Grado, the non-profit Klimt Foundation is supporting the “KLIMT PRINTED” show with loans and new research aspects. To this day, the individual sheets and folders are high-priced items on the art market.
Gustav Klimt’s paintings as “masterpieces of reproduction art”
For the Klimt group, which had left the Vienna Secession, 1908 was not only the year of the “Vienna Art Show”, but for Gustav Klimt it was also the realization of the first portfolio with high-quality reproductions of his paintings. 1908-1914 appeared The work of Gustav Klimt published by the HO Miethke art gallery. In 1917/18 bookseller Hugo Heller edited an expanded new edition. In 1931, art historian Max Eisler, who had already reproduced selected Klimt paintings in the first monograph about the artist in 1920, created another portfolio (Gustav Klimt. A review).
The aim was to market Klimt “en miniature” through these high-quality and expensive exhibitions of his works. Klimt himself was involved in the implementation of the “Miethke portfolio” during his lifetime, as Franz Servaes emphasized in retrospect in August 1918: “This work was begun several years ago by the Vienna art dealer Miethke, and was constantly monitored by the artist himself and completed shortly before his death.”
Research project on Klimt’s graphic works
The kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei was responsible for all versions. These “masterpieces of Austrian reproduction art” (Neue Freie Presse, February 27, 1909, p. 10) were executed precisely and using photomechanical printing techniques that are hardly feasible today. In addition, the reproductions now have a high documentary value. They demonstrate the appearance and partly also the color of important Klimt paintings that were destroyed by the fire at Immendorf Castle in May 1945, including the famous ones Faculty images for the University of Vienna.
The Klimt Foundation incorporated initial aspects of its current research into the show “KLIMT PRINTED” curated by Roberto Festi and is currently working on publishing a publication on Klimt’s monographic writings and his print oeuvre. An extensive exhibition in Vienna is also being planned.
KLIMT PRINTED
The focus of the exhibition KLIMT PRINTED (August 10th – October 27th, 2024) in the Casa della Musica in Grado, the former Austrian seaside resort, there are the portfolios mentioned above, supplemented by the Klimt drawings portfolio by Gilhofer & Ranschburg (1919). Furthermore, Klimt’s graphic skills are demonstrated by examples from early template folders, such as Allegories. New episode (1896-1900)from the Gerlach and Schenk publishing house, and illuminates his role as a graphic artist in the Vienna Secession. A catalog in German and Italian was published for the exhibition, organized by the Consorzio Grado Turismo and the municipality of Grado.
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