Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

A pear tree in full bloom dominates this early landscape by Klimt, the leading proponent of modernist painting in Vienna at the turn of the last century, when the city’s artists and designers rejected the conservative attitudes of the academy and endeavored to create a new art free from historical influence. While a horizontal format is traditionally used for landscapes, Klimt chose a square canvas — a pure geometric shape that was also the Vienna Secession’s dominant decorative motif. In the flowering branches, each dab of paint indicates a single leaf, blossom, or piece of fruit. The flat, flickering field of color evokes both postimpressionist painting and Byzantine mosaics. The left side of the work has a noticeably denser application of paint than the center or the right side. Klimt continued to add to the painting, filling in these bare spots, even after giving it to Emilie Flöge, his muse and mistress, in 1903.

Object Number

BR66.4

People

Gustav Klimt, Austrian (Vienna, Austria 1862 - 1918 Vienna, Austria)

Title

Pear Tree

Other Titles

Original Language Title: Birnbaum

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1903 (reworked by the artist 1903/1918)

Culture

Austrian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/299849

Medium

Oil and casein on canvas

Dimensions

101 x 101 cm (39 3/4 x 39 3/4 in.)
framed: 105.5 x 105.5 x 10.5 cm (41 9/16 x 41 9/16 x 4 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Otto Kallir

Accession Year

1966

Object Number

BR66.4

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

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IX Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della citta' di Venezia, exh. cat., Officine Grafiche C. Ferrari (Venice, 1910), p. 60

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1965), p. 36, cat. no. 6, repr.

Richard Bellamy, Focus on Light, exh. cat., New Jersey State Museum (Trenton, 1967), cat. no. 43, repr.

Charles Werner Haxthausen, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), p. 40, repr.

Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 369, p. 309, repr.

Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 96, color plate; pp. 115, 276, repr. b/w cat. no. 463

Peter Nisbet and Emilie Norris, Busch-Reisinger Museum: History and Holdings, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 76, ill.

Toni Stooss, ed., Gustav Klimt, exh. cat., Verlag Gerd Hatje (Stuttgart, Germany, 1992), p. 134-135, cat. no. G 32

James Cuno, Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Ivan Gaskell, and William W. Robinson, Harvard's Art Museums: 100 Years of Collecting, ed. James Cuno, Harvard University Art Museums and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp. 334-335, repr. color

Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997

Jane Kallir, Saved from Europe, Galerie St. Etienne (New York, NY, 1999), p. 24, plate 14

Stephan Koja, ed., Gustav Klimt: Landscapes, exh. cat., Prestel Verlag (Munich, Germany, 2002), plate no. 25

Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 187

Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 188, ill.

Greg Stone, Artful Business: 50 Lessons from Creative Geniuses (Boston, 2016), p. 32, ill. (color)

Aurélie Petiot, Le Préraphaélisme, Citadelles & Mazenod (Paris, 2019), repr. on pp.100-101

Alfred Weidinger, Gustav Klimt: L'Oeuvre Peint, Citadelles & Mazenod (Paris, 2021), pp. 276-277, cat. no. 163, repr. p. 276

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 02/05/1965 - 04/25/1965

Focus on Light, New Jersey State Museum, 05/20/1967 - 09/10/1967

Works from the 20th Century Collection of the Busch-Reisinger, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/15/1980 - 09/01/1980; Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 09/23/1980 - 10/24/1980

Deutsche Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts aus dem Busch-Reisinger Museum, Stadtische Galerie im Stadelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, 10/23/1982 - 01/16/1983; Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin 30, 02/10/1983 - 04/17/1983; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 05/08/1983 - 06/26/1983

Gustav Klimt 1862-1918: Modernism in the Making, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 06/15/2001 - 09/16/2001

Gustav Klimt: Landscapes, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 06/07/2002 - 09/02/2002

“As though my body were naught but ciphers”: Crises of Representation in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Harvard University Art Museums, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 02/12/2005 - 06/12/2005

Re-View: S118 European & American Art since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/13/2008 - 04/09/2011

Re-View: European and American Art Since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/03/2011 - 06/01/2013

32Q: 1440 Secessionism: Munich, Vienna, Berlin (Expressionism), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Google Art Project

Collection Highlights

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu