Gustav Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, a small town near Vienna. His mother, Anna, wanted to be a professional musician, but it didn’t happen. His father, Ernst Klimt the Elder, was a gold engraver. Gustav studied fine arts in the capital and played around with different styles until 1897, when he helped to found the Vienna Secession, a group devoted to the unconventional. Klimt might have been thinking of the laboratories of his childhood when he completed the Beethoven Frieze in 1902, a celebration of the composer that he finished with gold leaf. The rest is history. How did Klimt come to the unique style of his golden period? This exhibition explores the influence of modernist peers Van Gogh, Toorop, Rodin, Whistler, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, and Matisse. —Elena Clavarino

Travels to: Lower Belvedere, Vienna (February 3 – May 29)