Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka were all Austrian painters at the heart of the Viennese Secession. Klimt founded the art movement in 1897 and as the first president, his aim was to encourage art outside the realms of academic tradition. He was a symbolist painter who focussed predominantly on the subject of the female body. His, protégé, Egon Schiele worked primarily on figurative self-portraiture. Together, along with the expressionist Oskar Kokoschka, these nineteenth century artists are the highlights of the National Gallery's latest exhibition,
Facing The Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900. The exhibit studies the role portraiture played during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which spanned from 1867-1918.
Tickets are £12.50 for adults, £11 seniors and £5.50 for students and children. The work will be displayed until the 12th January, and includes several related events along the way. For example,
Fin-de-siècle is a lunchtime lecture series that take place on Monday afternoons at 1pm.There are also bookable
courses and
study days. December will see a two-person
performance about coffee culture, and you can take part in a
sculpture workshop .