Two Standing Female Nudes, the Left One with Raised Arms. Study for The Girlfriends II, 1916/17

This work on paper was created in connection with Gustav Klimt’s (1862–1918) numerous preliminary drawings for his 1916/17 painting The Girlfriends II. According to Alice Strobl, the present depiction corresponds to the advanced conception stage and differs from preceding studies, some of them created as early as 1915, such as Standing Female Nude from the Left, Head in Lost Profile. With its almost frontal position, the nude figure on the left in the present work largely resembles the left naked girlfriend in the painting, while both the drawing and the painting show strikingly stretched proportions and narrow hips and waists. Strobl further discerned a distinct upward movement in the two standing figures in the drawing, which she associated with Klimt’s affinity for the ecstatic, lambent style of El Greco’s (1541–1614) figures. Klimt was indeed greatly impressed by the Spanish Mannerist’s paintings which he saw during a visit to Toledo in October 1909.

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