Exhibition poster (pre-censored state)

This lithograph is the poster for the first Secession Exhibition held in 1898 in Vienna.

Klimt’s poster demonstrates that the introduction of the empty plane was the concern not only of architects and that around the turn of the century, everything had its “causative agent”.Sullivan and his comrades-in-arts - later Adolf Loos - were propagating the simple, smooth surface and were preparing the way for functionalism. In this poster, the empty plane also seems to be a sort of wall, as suggested by the cornice at the top. Contradictory elements are combined into a whole; in the tension which infuses the contrast between the empty plane and the figures, there lies an incredible modernity.

Accusations of pornography were made against Klimt from the earliest days of the Secession. His poster for the society’s first exhibition fell foul of the Viennese censor, who demanded that a tree be strategically placed in front of what was originally a nude figure of Theseus fighting the Minotaur.