Secession

The Vienna Secession grew out of a dissatisfaction with the traditional practices of the Kunstlerhausgenossenschaft; an association which could have been called the Vienna Academie.

The Kunstlerhaus was, in Gustav Klimt's eyes, directed by commercial motivations which were limiting in their disregard of foreign artists and maintained art as something separate from the lives of the majority of the Austrian people. This conflict between new ideals and the establishment came to a head in 1897 when forty members of the Kunstlerhaus seceded and founded their own association with Gustav Klimt as their president.

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