Books: The Lady in Gold (Klimt)

The Washington Post has some good reviews of books infrequently covered elsewhere.  Here they review Anne-Marie O'Connor's" new book "The Lady in Gold," an exhaustive look at the Gustav Klimt painting and its history.

It is a pity the Klimt work is out of circulation and in private hands, and also a pity that too few artists are explored, while others are over-exposed.

Several years ago the Neue Galerie New York museum had a retrospective of Austrian painters I attended and was more than fascinated by.  After seeing the exhibit, I searched out more of their work, and their history.

Some remarkable tidbits, other than gossip, about the Vienna group I stumbled on is information about their materials or lack therein.  It was remarkable how little attention was paid to issues that are exhaustively analyzed these days, i.e., archival materials.  Many of the Viennese School and many other artists of the early 20th century used paper that we'd often reject as unusable and writing instruments we'd pass by. 

Egon Schiele, Self-portrait, 1912

Several of Egon Schiele's works, all having survived, are on plain sketch paper, and 

Das Undbild, 1919, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Kurt Schwitter's work is often on newsprint (German, not Austrian).