Pear Tree

1900–1907

He returns the advance and keeps the paintings

The state commission refused to accept the three “Faculty Paintings”; Klimt told the minister he would return the 60,000-krone advance, refused to work for the Austrian state again and kept the pictures. The ministry demanded them, but Klimt did not open the door to the removal men — and the affair ended in his victory.

1901

“Medicine”: accused of a “triumph of death”

The Secession's tenth exhibition showed “Medicine” with the goddess Hygieia; a feuilleton in the Neue Freie Presse accused Klimt of depicting a “triumph of death” instead of medicine's victories. In an interview about these scandals he declared that what mattered to him was not how many people liked a picture but who they were.

1903

His first solo show at the Secession

The Secession's first solo exhibition was devoted to Klimt and proved exceptionally successful: the artist earned 36,000 kronen.

1905

Klimt and his group leave the Secession

Klimt and his “stylist” followers, who held that art should enter every sphere of life, fell out with the “naturalists”; the decision against Klimt's group was carried by a single vote. For the next three years the group had no joint exhibitions.

1 June – 16 November 1908

The first Vienna Art Show

For the sixtieth anniversary of Franz Joseph's reign pavilions with 54 rooms were built on a temporary site and over 900 works shown. Room 22, which Peter Altenberg called “the church of modern art named after Gustav Klimt”, held “The Kiss”, “Adele Bloch-Bauer I”, “Danaë” and “The Three Ages of Woman”.

6 February 1918

Died