Gustav Klimt
From the late 1890s, Gustav Klimt gradually established his reputation as a portraitist of Viennese bourgeois women, producing a number of female portraits—many of the models remain unidentified. Recent research has associated this particular painting, with its Impressionist feel and depiction of a young woman against a lush green natural backdrop, with Maria Ucicka (1880–1928). Ucicka, a model in Klimt’s household, gave birth to the artist’s first illegitimate son, Gustav Ucicky, in 1899. In total, he had at least 14 illegitimate children.
The sitter is shown in a slight twist, wearing a fashionable summer hat and a white high-necked blouse with puffed sleeves. Her light blue eyes gaze directly at the viewer—at Klimt himself. Her finely painted, delicate oval face with gently flushed cheeks suggests a sense of shyness or vulnerability.
This subtle, sensitive style of painting shows the beginning of Klimt’s lyrical and ethereal portraits of women. We see a striking contrast of the figure to the broader, rougher brushstrokes used in the surrounding foliage. The dense leaves above her right shoulder are rendered in deep greens.
P.S. If you like his style, be sure to check out our Vienna Secession Undated Planner, which will help you stay organized throughout the year in style!
P.P.S. Before Klimt became the icon of the Secession movement, he painted in a very conventional style. Discover Klimt’s unknown portraits! Would you believe they were done by him?