(Vienna 1862–1918)
Reclining female semi-nude, 1914/15, stamp: Gustav Klimt Nachlass (slightly faded), pencil on paper, 35.6 x 55.6 cm, framed

Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt, Die Zeichnungen 1912–1918, vol. III, Verlag Galerie Welz, Salzburg 1984, p. 74/2423, ill. p. 75

Provenance:
Private Collection, Vienna

Compare:
Mona Horncastle/Alfred Weidinger, Gustav Klimt, Die Biografie, Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 2018, p.136–137

… Despite his announcement on the occasion of the completion of the Stoclet frieze that he would never again exhibit in Vienna, he participated in the International Black-and-White exhibition organised by the Academic Artist’s Association for Music and Literature, held from 6 December 1913 to the beginning of February 1914. It took place in rented rooms on 19 Opernring. Max Glaß found the fact that a city with over a million inhabitants purporting to be metropolis could not find a home for art utterly shameful. According to Berta Zuckerkandl, this exhibition was a reaction to Secession Art, which had long lost any vibrant leadership, and had affiliated itself with the Künstlerhaus. There was talk of a nadir in exhibitions. […] Accusations of pornography were once again made against Klimt at this exhibition, this time from A.F. Seligmann of the Neue Freie Presse, while Wilhelm Hausenstein, who utterly dismissed Klimt’s paintings, was alone in accepting his erotic drawings.
The evening edition of the Wiener Zeitung discussed the evasive and yet fabulously confident outlines of Klimt’s drawings, created with hard lead pencils, just as it discussed his gaunt models. Such indications lead to the belief that Klimt exhibited drawings from his mature style as well as his most recent endeavours. […]
Directly on the heels of this exhibition followed a far too little known event on 14 February 1914, a Picasso exhibition at Galerie Miethke, which aimed to give an overview of Picasso’s work. Berta Zuckerkandl greatly deplored the fact that his early work was underrepresented, with the exception of a few drawings, as precisely these works could have been of importance to Klimt. There are nevertheless certain similarities between Picasso’s studies, which are solely composed of outlines and span almost all his periods of production, and with Klimt’s work.
What is at stake here is not, of course, the influence that Picasso may have had on Klimt’s oeuvre, but rather an affinity in the artistic ideas of two great masters.
...Alice Strobl – from the mentioned literature below