Wilhelm List Biography

Wilhelm List (1864-1918) was a pupil of Christian Griepenkerl at the Vienna Academy and, together with Gustav Klimt, a founding member and leading figure of the Vienna Secession in 1897. He published the journal of the Secession, Ver Sacrum, and also executed many designs for this journal.

At the turn of the century, List's paintings increasingly delved into an imaginary world of fantasy. He took part in all the annual exhibitions of the Secession from the first in 1898 to the last in 1905, when he, together with Klimt and a group of artists around them left the Secession because of misgivings over the commercial policies of their new sponsor, Paul Bacher.

List was one of the closest of Gustav Klimt's followers in the Secession. While close to Klimt in style and subject matter, his symbolist paintings generally tended to be more dreamlike and detached.