Gustav Klimt

Leader of the Vienna Secession, which broke from the academy in 1897 with the motto that every age should have its own art. His gold-ground decorative surfaces belong to the same late-Habsburg Vienna as Freud and Mahler, a culture at its most inventive as its state came apart.

• Lived: 1862 CE – 1918 CE
• Nationality: austrian
• Roles: painter