The striking paintings of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka star in this ground-breaking exhibition which examines the central role portraiture played in Viennese painting and the upheaval in the tradition that marked the years around 1900. The exhibition traces the distinctive flourishing of modern art in Vienna in the years before 1918 which saw the end of the First World War, the collapse of the empire, and the deaths of both Klimt and Schiele.
Artists focused on the image of the individual, working to the demands of patrons from the city’s burgeoning middle classes. Commemorative yet critical, cautious yet radical, their portraits chart the changing fortunes of men, women and children in one of the most diverse cities of its time.
