Gustav Klimt’s 150th anniversary offers an opportunity to see Vienna’s collection in its entirety

VIENNA.- The Klimt Collection of the Wien Museum impresses not only by its size, but its variety. It encompasses all his creative periods from his student days, his first major commissions in the 1880s right through to the year before his death in 1918. There are two absolute masterpieces amongst the paintings, ‘Pallas Athene’ and the portrait of Emilie Flöge, as well as a fascinating watercolour ‘Interior view of the old Imperial and Royal Burgtheater’, a commission from 1887/88 that brought the young aspiring painter public recognition. Most of all the collection comprises around 400 drawings, as well as rarities such as the scandalous poster, uncensored, of the first exhibition of the Secession, Klimt’s cloak that he wore when painting, precious prints, vintage prints of portrait photographs, the painter’s death mask as well as Egon Schiele’s drawing of Klimt on his death bed.