The best of Klimt's drawings and watercolors, beautifully reproduced in full color.

There is no doubt about Gustav Klimt's greatness as a draftsman. Remarkable above all is the intensely sensual mood that he establishes in his limpid, fluid drawings and watercolors: the pencil or crayon line with which his subjects are described explores and caresses as though the act of drawing was itself a seduction. Klimt's drawings are often highly erotic and explicit, many to such an extent that they have rarely been reproduced. This has made for an unbalanced representation of his work as a draftsman, and a comprehensive survey of his graphic output is long overdue.

Rainer Metzger, a noted art historian, has brought together hundreds of Klimt's drawings and watercolors in a way that enriches our knowledge of the artist and enhances the visual impact of his oeuvre. Klimt's drawings and studies, and his elegantly direct and dangerously intoxicating preparatory sketches, reveal the underlying impetus for and structure of his elaborate canvases. 307 color illustrations.