How Did Gustav Klimt Die?
Gustav Klimt died on 6 February 1918 in Vienna, aged 55. A stroke left him partly paralyzed, then he caught the Spanish flu sweeping the world, and pneumonia finished him.
He was not an old man worn out by time. He was cut down mid career, with canvases still wet in the studio.
Here is how the king of Viennese art died, and how the same year erased the world around him.
The death at a glance
Died: 6 February 1918, in Vienna.
Age: 55.
Cause: a stroke, then the Spanish flu and pneumonia.
Left behind: many unfinished paintings.
That year: it gutted Vienna's whole art world.
The stroke
In January 1918 Klimt suffered a stroke at home. It paralyzed the right side of his body, the side he painted with.
For a man whose entire life was his hand and his eye, it was a quiet catastrophe. He was taken to hospital, unable to work.
The Spanish flu
He had picked the worst possible moment to be weak. The Spanish flu pandemic was tearing through Europe, killing millions.
Already laid low by the stroke, Klimt caught it. Pneumonia set in, and he died on 6 February, only weeks after the first collapse.
The unfinished studio
Klimt left a studio full of work in progress. Several major canvases, including The Bride, were never finished, frozen halfway between drawing and gold.
They show how he worked, building a figure up from frank, naked underdrawing before burying it in ornament. The full arc of that method is in The Kiss and Woman in Gold.
The year that gutted Vienna
Klimt's death was only the start. The year 1918 emptied the city of its greatest talents.
The architect Otto Wagner and the designer Koloman Moser died the same year. So did Klimt's brilliant protege Egon Schiele, taken by the same flu that October, at just 28, days after his pregnant wife. In ten months Vienna lost both its master and his heir.
His last request
When the stroke hit, Klimt is said to have asked for one person: Emilie Floge.
She was the woman he never married and may never have taken as a lover, yet she was the closest thing to a partner he ever had. She got the message too late to change anything.
FAQ about how Klimt died
How did Klimt die? A stroke, then the Spanish flu and pneumonia.
When did he die? 6 February 1918.
How old was he? 55.
Did the Spanish flu kill him? It was the final blow after his stroke.
Who else died that year? Egon Schiele, Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser.
Master and heir, gone in a year
Within ten months the same pandemic took both Klimt and the young genius he had mentored, Egon Schiele.
The empire they had painted for collapsed the same autumn. An entire world ended at once. The man at the center of it is Gustav Klimt.