Legion of Honor, San Francisco will celebrate the legacies of Auguste Rodin and Gustav Klimt in the upcoming exhibition.

This first major Klimt exhibition on the West Coast will survey the span of the artist’s practice. Among the 33 works by Klimt that will be exhibited are iconic paintings, such as Nuda Veritas (1899), Klimt’s response to the conservative views of the art establishment, on loan from the Österreichisches Theatermuseum; Upper Austrian Farmhouse (1911), in his landscape style, loaned by the Belvedere in Vienna; Portrait of Ria Munk III (1917) from the Lewis Collection; and The Virgin (1913), loaned from the National Gallery in Prague, in which Klimt’s use of color is on full display. Setting the context for the exhibition will be two seven-foot-tall panels reproduced from one of Klimt’s most celebrated works, the Beethoven Frieze(1902). The exhibition copy of the frieze will give American audiences a special opportunity to experience the iconic work outside of Vienna. Widely regarded as the start of Klimt’s “golden period,” the frieze was painted for the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition in celebration of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and illustrates the human desire for happiness in a tempestuous world marked by suffering.

Approximately 25 sculptures and works on paper by Rodin from the Fine Arts Museums’ collection will provide visual dialogues with the works by Klimt. The exhibition is thematically arranged around the Vienna Secession, Rodin’s 1901 exhibition in Vienna, Rodin’s 1902 visit to Vienna, Klimt’s landscapes and Rodin’s surfaces, and the depiction of women. Klimt’s portrait style will be represented through his modern paintings of society women, such as Portrait of Sonja Knips (1898), Johanna Staude(1917-18), and The Black Feathered Hat (1910), the latter from a period when the French influence in Klimt’s work was particularly strong. Also on view will be a number of erotic drawings, highlighting his preoccupation with the female body. Klimt’s landscape paintings, revealing his independence of form, represent another significant genre in the exhibition; from the early impressionist On Lake Attersee (1900), to the later Italian Garden Landscape (1913), engaging more expressive brushwork and color.

The exhibition will be on view from October 14, 2017 through January 28, 2018 at Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA.

For details, visit: http://legionofhonor.famsf.org/