Gustav Klimt

Karl Heinz Gabler, Frankfurt
Sale: Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 28th November 1997, lot 20
Private Collection, United Kingdom
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe, 3. Internationale der Zeichnung, Sonderausstellungen Gustav Klimt und Henri Matisse, 1970, no. 25, illustrated in the catalogue
Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Experiment Weltuntergang, Wien um 1900, 1981, no. 43, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny, Musée Maillol, Gustav Klimt, Papiers Érotiques, 2005, n.n., illustrated in colour in the catalogue 
Liverpool, Tate Liverpool, Gustav Klimt, Paintings, Design and Modern Life, 2008, no. 210, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Vienna, Albertina Museum, Gustav Klimt, The Drawings, 2012, no. 109, illustrated in colour the catalogue

Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt, Die Zeichnungen 1904-12, Salzburg, 1982, vol. II, no. 1794, illustrated p. 178
Tobias G Natter (ed.), Gustav Klimt, The Complete Paintings, Cologne, 2012, no. 26, illustrated in colour p. 397

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down. Taped to the mount at all four corners and floating in the mount. There are a few spots of foxing. There are some minor creases to the sheet, predominately to the extreme corners. The sheet is slightly undulating. There are some minor spots of studio dirt towards the lower left corner. Otherwise this work is in good original condition.
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This intimate drawing was executed at the height of Klimt’s success. Two figures, barely distinguishable in their embrace, are brought together by his mastery of line. Drapery and limbs morph into one form, and whilst Klimt’s pencil suggests obvious movement, this is a wonderfully still, serene image, made all the more so by his trademark suggestion of desire – the woman’s eyes held tight shut, as if in a trance. Marian Bisanz-Prakken has written of these drawings, ‘As he so often did, Klimt went much further in the studies he executed in preparation than he ultimately did in the finished work… lovers pressed tightly against one another and seeming to hover weightlessly in space’ (Tobias Natter (ed.), Gustav Klimt: The Complete Paintings, Cologne, 2012, p. 395). With respect to this particular drawing, Bisanz-Prakken adds that ‘the tension between abstraction and sensuality that has been resolved with disciplined line and fluid lightness is particularly effective in this work’ (ibid., p. 395).

At the centre of the great Kunstschau exhibition of 1908 was Klimt’s most famous work, The Kiss (fig. 1). An epic depiction, it is the painterly exploration of the love between a man and a woman. Executed in the same two year period as the present work, the distinction between the two proves clearly Marian Bisanz-Prakken’s assertion that Klimt went much further in his pencil studies than in his oil paintings. Whereas The Kiss is a carefully judged and highly decorative composition, the present drawing commands a much more instinctive and powerful presence: we are witness to Klimt the great observer capturing perhaps the most intimate moment of the human spirit.