Put uspjehu – rani radovi Gustava i Ernsta Klimta

At the heart of the exhibition are five early drawings by Gustav and Ernst Klimt, created during their studies at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, today known as the University of Applied Arts (Universität für angewandte Kunst). The works bear witness to the thorough academic training young artists received, in which the study of proportion, light and volume, along with extensive practice drawing from plaster models, formed the foundation of their future artistic development. A special place is given to the study of an ancient female head, known as the “Brunn Head,” which Gustav Klimt created in 1878, at just fifteen years of age. It is his second-oldest known work that is both signed and dated. The exhibition also features four studies of roses that were once attributed to Gustav Klimt, but recent research has shown that they were actually created by his younger brother Ernst between 1880 and 1883. The school drawings are presented in the context of nine monumental paintings created for the Rijeka theatre in 1885, today the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc. The large commission was completed jointly by the Klimt brothers and their fellow student Franz Matsch, who had founded a studio together while still studying. The Rijeka cycle represents one of the most important surviving testimonies to their early collaborative work. The nine allegorical paintings were restored and have been on display at the Sugar Palace since 2021. The exhibition offers a glimpse of…