For the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), the MAK is placing the artist’s cartoons for the mosaic frieze in the dining hall of Stoclet House, Brussels, at the center of an exhibition. Following several years of restoration, the existing nine parts of the Stoclet Frieze cartoons are again presented in the MAK Permanent Collection. The exhibition also provides new insights into the genesis of this world-famous work of art as well as Klimt’s style of working, and includes the Stoclet family as important patrons of the Wiener Werkstätte.
The catalogue published with the exhibition will illustrate the creation process of the frieze and put the material and ideological appropriation of motifs developed by Klimt in a general historical and arthistorical perspective. It will address in some detail Klimt’s reception of Japanese painting and the exhibition history of the cartoons, also the commissions given to the Wiener Werkstätte by the Stoclet family.
Curator Beate Murr,
Conservation Department
On 14 July 2012, the MAK will be holding a KLIMT DAY with a varied program to celebrate the artist’s birthday.
catalogue GUSTAV KLIMT: EXPECTATION AND FULFILLMENT. Cartoons for the Mosaic Frieze at Stoclet House, edited by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein and Beate Murr, with contributions by Rainald Franz, Anette Freytag, Beate Murr, Elisabeth Schmuttermeier, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Johannes Wieninger, approx. 136 pages, numerous color illustrations, three fold-outs, MAK Vienna/Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2012.
