"Gustav Klimt: In search of the "Total Artwork" follows the course of Klimt's career. It starts with his early work as one of Vienna's most successful public muralists and concludes with his later triumph as the city's foremost society portraitist. In between, the publication examines Klimt's absorption of Symbolist influences his collaborations with the Vienna Secession and the Wiener Werkstatte, and his involvement with the 1908 "Kunstschau", the last major exhibition organized by and for the Austrian avant-garde prior to the outbreak of World War I."--BOOK JACKET.