In the manner of Gustav Klimt
Austrian, 1862–1918
Portrait of a Tattooed Man, 2026
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
150 × 120 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.11.2
He sits square to us, shaven head, level gaze, both arms sleeved in blue-grey tattoos, and at the shoulder the tattoos stop being skin and become the gold field around him: spirals, eyes, black and gold rectangles. Klimt dressed his sitters in pattern until you could not tell the dress from the wall. This sitter has done that himself, over several years and at some expense.
The brief
A portrait of a shaven-headed man whose tattoos flow off his arms and become a flat gold and black patterned field around him. Viennese Secession painting with gold leaf, figures whose faces and hands are rendered softly and realistically while their bodies dissolve into flat fields of ornamental pattern, spirals, squares and eyes in gold, black and jewel tones, mosaic-like decorative surfaces, elongated composition, shimmering metallic leaf against matte paint. Museum photograph of the painting with gold leaf catching light, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
