In the manner of Gustav Klimt
Austrian, 1862–1918
The Selfie, 2026
Oil and gold leaf on canvas
150 × 120 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.11.1
Two young women pressed cheek to cheek, grinning at the phone one of them holds up, and below their faces everything turns to gold: spirals, eyes, squares, a tree of life curling up the right-hand side. The phone itself is half gilded. Klimt kept the faces soft and real and made everything else into ornament. The selfie does the same. The filter is the gold.
The brief
Two young women standing side by side and upright, cheek to cheek, both facing the viewer and grinning at the phone one holds up, faces soft and real, their bodies and the phone dissolving into a wall of gold ornament and spirals. 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.
