The Life of Gustav Klimt (1894-1905)

Gustav Klimt moved with his mother, his two sisters, Klara and Hermine, and brother Georg into the apartment at 36 Westbahnstraße in Vienna's 7th district, where he would live until his death. The Department of Education commissioned Klimt and Matsch to design ceiling paintings for the large festive hall in the university building in Vienna. Klimt was to create three large-scale faculty paintings and ten spandrel paintings. During this year, Klimt is thought to have painted "Seated Young Girl" (Leopold Museum, Vienna) and "Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Frau Heymann?)" (Wien Museum).

Gustav Klimt and Franz Matsch presented the first small-scale designs for the faculty paintings at the university building in Vienna, which were approved by a commission. Klimt painted, among others, the "Josef Lewinsky as Carlos in Clavigo" painting (Belvedere, Vienna). He also painted "Allegory of Love" (Wien Museum) for the "Allegories and Emblems" portfolio by Martin Gerlach.

Twenty-three painters, sculptors, and architects belonging to the Austrian Artists' Association at the Künstlerhaus, including Gustav Klimt, formed an independent group within the Artists' Association on April 3, 1897. On May 24, 1897, 13 artists, among them Klimt, announced their withdrawal from the Artists' Association and founded their own artists' association, called the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession. Klimt was appointed President of the Secession.

During the summer, Klimt went on summer vacation with the Flöge family for the first time. The Flöge family consisted of the three sisters, Pauline, Helene, and Emilie Flöge, their mother, Barbara Flöge, and Helene Luise Klimt, daughter of Helene Flöge and Gustav's brother Ernst, who died at a young age. This year, they spent their summer vacation in Fieberbrunn in Tyrol. From this point on, Klimt traveled to the countryside with the Flöge family for several weeks each summer. He drew inspiration for almost all of his landscape motifs from these summer vacations. 

Klimt began the "Lady by the Fireplace" (Belvedere, Vienna) and "Portrait of Sonja Knips" (Belvedere, Vienna) paintings.

At the beginning of May, he traveled to Florence, Genoa, Verona, and Venice with the Carl Moll family. On July 6, Gustav Ucicky (died 1961), son of Gustav Klimt and his model Maria Ucicka (1880–1928), was born, and on September 1, another Gustav (died 1976), the son of the artist and Marie "Mizzi" Zimmermann (1879–1975) was born. From August through September, Klimt took a summer vacation in Golling, near Hallein, where he began work on the painting, "A Morning by the Pond" (Leopold Museum, Vienna).

The "Philosophy" faculty painting was shown for the first time at the 7th Secession exhibition from March through June, and, right after, at the Paris Exposition. Despite the storm of indignation caused by the painting, especially among the professors at the University of Vienna, it was awarded a gold medal in Paris. In August and September, Klimt and the Flöge family stayed at Litzlberg on Lake Attersee in the Salzkammergut region for the first time. From then on, Attersee would be the favorite destination for Klimt and the Flöge family for their summer vacation. This is where Klimt began work on the "On Lake Attersee" painting (Leopold Museum, Vienna).

In May, Klimt made a trip to Ravenna and Venice. He made another trip at the end of November, when he also visited Padua, Pisa, and Florence. From July through September, he stayed in Litzlberg on Lake Attersee. From November 1903 through January 1904, the large-scale "Klimt Collective" took place in the Secession. Among other works, all three faculty paintings were on display for the first time, some in a partially unfinished state. The Art Commission of the Department of Education examined the faculty paintings and proposed not to display them at the university, but to exhibit them in the newly opened Modern Gallery. The poet and art critic Hermann Bahr published a collection of critiques in a separate publication entitled "Against Klimt," directed primarily at the faculty paintings and "Beethoven Frieze".

Klimt completed "The Large Poplar II (Rising Storm)" (Leopold Museum, Vienna) and "Water Nymphs (Silverfish)" (Bank of Austria Collection). He also started work on "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" (Neue Galerie, New York), "Hope I" (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), and "Portrait of Hermine Gallia" (The National Gallery, London). Finally, he painted "The Golden Knight" (Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art).