Vienna 1862 - 1918 Vienna

Nude from the Front, Hands on Hips

_{Study in connection with the dedication sheet for the 70th birthday of Otto Wagner}

Pencil on paper

57.1 x 37.5 cm

Stamp lower right: GUSTAV / KLIMT / NACHLASS

Strobl WV no. 2023

Provenienz:

Private collection USA, Courtesy Serge Sabarsky Gallery,
New York
Private collection, Japan
110. Auction Klipstein und Kornfeld, Bern 1963, no. 536 (board 69)
Private collection Hikonobu Ise, Japan

Literatur:

Alfred Werner, Gustav Klimt. One Hundred Drawings, New York, 1972, ill. no. 87
The Ise Collection, Ise Lifedesgn House, Japan 1984, ill. no. 12
Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt. Die Zeichnungen. Vol. II: Die Zeichnungen 1904–1912, Salzburg 1989, ill. p. 253, WV no. 2023

The extraordinary artist Gustav Klimt left a qualitative and quantative oevre behind. Even during his lifetime, the mastery of its maker received great admiration. Klimt created masterful interpretations of his models on paper. He used them as studies, that made his artistic process more transparent, but also as graphical works. Constants of his exemplary draftsmanship were his relaxed lines and formal discipline. His depictions of female forms with a floating ease about them manifest in sensual and immaterial illustrations of allegories of human life. 1

In our drawing “Nude from the front, hands on hips” from 1911, Gustav Klimt anchors an upright standing woman central on the page. The curves of the seemingly introverted figure are subtly accentuated. Alternating rhythmic contours emphasize her sultry features, as well as adding spatial nuance. The artist created structure in his drawing by contrasting the figure and dimensions with the blank page. The triangular perspective under her left arm is especially illustrative of that.
1 cf. Marian Bisanz-Prakken, “Gustav Klimt the draftsman” in the exhibition catalog
“Gustav Klimt. The drawings”, Albertina, Vienna 2012, p. 10-19