Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool will be a UK first

May 27 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

Gustav Klimt, one of the world's greatest painters _158

GUSTAV KLIMT: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 is the first comprehensive exhibition of Klimt’s work ever staged in the UK, and a key event in Liverpool’s programme for European Capital of Culture 2008.

Opening at Tate Liverpool on Friday until August 31, the gallery is expecting it to be one of its biggest visitor attractions in its 20-year history.

The exhibition features not only major paintings, drawings and graphics by Klimt but also a wealth of furniture, design and silver objects, jewellery, fashion, graphic design and documentary material assembled from across the world.

It recreates the sophisticated world of Klimt and his patrons in Vienna around 1900 at the juncture between art, architecture and design.

The exhibition presents key paintings and drawings in settings that approximate their original presentation in which works of art were integrated into fully designed environments.

The exhibition also pays homage to the formative impact of the British arts and crafts movement in Vienna at this time, reflecting the influence of British artists such as William Morris and Frances Macdonald Mackintosh.

Work on display will include a reconstruction of Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, a masterpiece of 20th-century art that celebrates the unification of all arts – painting, sculpture, architecture and music – and is a prime example of the "Gesamtkunstwerk", the concept of the total work of art pioneered by Richard Wagner and influential in Vienna around 1900.

Tickets, visit www.tate.org.uk/tickets, call 0845 600 1354.