The exhibition presents color prints from Klimt's Das Werk series, made between 1908 and 1914, which includes some of his most iconic masterpieces such as The Kiss, Judith I, and Emilie Flöge. Three exceptional additions to the show are black-and-white collotypes based on the controversial paintings that originally decorated the ceiling of the Great Hall at the University of Vienna, and were destroyed during World War II. The Das Werk collotypes are paired with a selection of important Austrian ceramics from the same period, with an emphasis on masterworks from the Amphora manufacturer in Turn Teplitz (now part of the Czech Republic). Important pieces from one remarkable decade, 1894 to 1904, feature fauna and flora-inspired designs, mythical creatures, simulated jewels, and Klimt-inspired compositions. In the same manner that Klimt incorporated design and ornamental elements into his two-dimensional paintings, Amphora ceramists took stylistic inspiration from painting and sculpture to radically transform pottery into an art form of its own.
