Gustav Klimt

Painter, the leading master of Viennese Art Nouveau, who belonged to the founders of the Secession. His decorative murals and symbolic paintings (e. g., the University of Vienna, 1900-03) exerted a great influence on his contemporaries even beyond Austria’s borders; he was also successful as a poster artist (the poster of the first Secession exhibition in 1898) and a designer (clothing designs and a mosaic for the Stoclet Palace in Brussels).