Brustbild eines Mädchens im Profil nach rechts - Kniestück im Profil nach rechts. Um 1916.
Pencil drawing, heightened with white chalk.
Strobl 2677. Signed in center. On light brownish simili Japon. 52,8 x 34,5 cm (20,7 x 13,5 in).

PROVENANCE: Martha Burian, Vienna.
Leo Stussig, architect and town master mason (acquaintance of Otto Wagner).
Private ownership Germany.

Gustav Klimt was born at the XIV district of Baumgarten in Vienna on 14 July 1862 as son of a gold engraver. In 1876 he began his studies at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule under the influence of the history painter Hans Makart, which was apparent in his first orders for theatre decorations and ceiling paintings. Soon Klimt received prizes for his works. At the turn of the century - he was just designing wall and ceiling decorations for the university - he developed a new two-dimensionally-ornamental, decorative style, which combines naturalistic details of bodies with abstract, colorful, mosaic-like patterns. His clients protested resolutely and legal proceedings erupted. In 1905 Klimt was allowed to keep the designs in return of his payment. At the same time the Vienna Secession emerged and Klimt was a founding member and its first president from 1897 to 1905. In 1902 Klimt executed the famous Beethoven frieze for Josef Maria Olbrich's Secession building, which can still be visited in the basement of the building. In 1905 Klimt and a group of like-minded people left the Secession due to conflicts with the artist association's naturalistic wing. Klimt's motifs were partly provocatively erotic, partly playfully ornamental. He created impressing portraits, especially of ladies from the Viennese high society, but also intensively dense landscape paintings. Like no other artist and as the favorite of certain circles of the Viennese society of the ending monarchy he was able to depict the spirit of the feudal bourgeoisie with its aspirations to cultivate the aesthetic and its yearning for the pleasures of life at the Fin-de-Siècle.

The filigree on most of Klimt’sdrawings was abandoned in this work in favor of a stronger drawing. Additionally, the slight heightening in white strokes of chalk adds a certain painting-like component to the drawing, which, however remains subordinate to the overall composition. Klimt focused entirely on the clear profile of the person depicted, which he rendered purely linear and in strong contrast to the image-free part of the sheet. As so often, this work's make also shows a notion inner drama. The depicted person's elongated neck is proof of Klimt's tendency to a certain Decorativism which characterized large parts of his oeuvre of paintings.

The artist's international approval was proven by numerous exhibitions and finally moved the conservative spirits, who honored him: Although a professorship for Klimt was repeatedly refused, he became honorary member of the academies in Vienna and Munich. Gustav Klimt died from a stroke in his hometown Vienna on 6 February 1918. His hometown Vienna particularly honored the artist with numerous exhibitions in 2012, as it marks the artist's 150\up5 th birthday. [KD].