Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter born in 1862 in Baumgarten near Vienna into a family of craftsmen. The Austrian artist was a symbolist and one of the pioneers of the figurative movements of the Vienna Secession (a movement comparable to Art Nouveau in France). At the beginning of his professional career, he established an enviable reputation as a decorative artist for the state and government; however, he was not yet very innovative. In the following years, his work evolved towards more modernity and originality. He began to express his creativity more openly and dissociated himself from the constraints of academic models. He was most often influenced by Japanese prints and symbols. He chose Emilie Flöge as his companion and became friends with other writers, artists and sculptors. He received numerous awards and in 1898 founded the art magazine "Ver sacrum" (Sacred Spring). This magazine later became the mouthpiece of the movement known as the Secession. He was a painter of compositions including nude figures, portraits and landscapes, and was also a decorator, ceramist and lithographer. Klimt was a full-time artist who transcended his era and characterised it by his originality and creativity. He died on 6 February 1918 after suffering a stroke and pneumonia, three years after the death of his mother. He painted the famous work The Kiss in 1907/08.

But the painter's star faded in the years following his death. His work, which in the aftermath of the war was considered picturesque and outdated, even if it was a strange expression of symbolism of dubious taste, remained in purgatory for a long time. The first monograph devoted to the artist was published in 1967. The real discovery of Klimt, however, came in the 1980s, as a result of the work on the early 20th century in Vienna and the reappraisal of Art Nouveau. Since then, his stature has grown steadily, and the awe his work inspires today is commensurate with the apathy or disdain with which it was treated for fifty years. Some of her work has become iconic and the motifs in her paintings are used repeatedly in advertisements and in fashionable jewellery and clothing. In 2006, Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907) was one of the most expensive works of art sold at auction.