Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, Vienna in the Austrian Empire, the second of seven children. His mother, Anna Klimt (née Finster), had an unrealized desire to be a musical performer. His father, Ernst Klimt the Elder, formerly from Bohemia, was a gold engraver. All three of their sons displayed artistic talent at an initial stage. Klimt's younger brothers were Ernst Klimt and Georg Klimt.

Klimt lived in poverty while attending the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, a school of applied arts and crafts, now the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he studied architectural painting from 1876 until 1883. He respects Vienna's foremost history painter of the time, Hans Makart. Klimt readily accepted the principles of conservative training. In 1877 his brother, Ernst, who, like his father, would become an engraver, also enter in the school. The two brothers and their friend, Franz Matsch, began working jointly and by 1880 they had received many commissions as a team that they called the "Company of Artists". Read more...

References