Gustav Klimt in front of his studio in Feldmühlgasse 11, Vienna, 1917

Mutual influences between the media of photography and visual art in Viennese Modernism around 1900 also informed the collaboration, lasting for more than two decades, between Moriz Nähr (1859–1945) and Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) who had first met in the course of the founding of the Vienna Secession. Numerous photographic portraits that Nähr made of Klimt attest to their artistic bond. In this portrait series, Nähr moves beyond the usual studio-photo session, choosing instead an unconventional presentation out in nature and broad daylight, as is evidenced by this shot entitled Gustav Klimt in front of his studio in Feldmühlgasse 11, Vienna. Access to Klimt’s studio as a photographic setting was reserved exclusively to Nähr, which conflated official (self-)presentation with the private. The clarity of the pictorial composition is constituted by the positioning of the person portrayed in the foreground—his head shown in three-quarter profile, in formal clothes with very deliberate posing and gestures—and further accentuated by the blurry backdrop of his studio garden.

BH, 2021