The world-renowned artist on the Attersee

Comparable to Claude Monet’s Giverny, Paul Cézanne’s Provence and Egon Schiele’s Krumau, the Attersee was a place of unique artistic activity for Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). The world-renowned artist regularly spent the summer months between 1900 and 1916 in this region, preferably holidaying on the turquoise lake with his life partner Emilie Flöge (1874-1952).

Already in 1883 a travel guide on the Attersee mentioned that one would have to be a “highly capable painter”, if one wanted to “come close to determining the colors of the lake”. In 1900 Gustav Klimt managed to capture the shades of the Attersee so masterfully in a painting that the art critic Ludwig Hevesi called it a “frame full of lake water”. Gustav Klimt would ultimately be inspired by the Attersee to create the vast majority of his more than 50 known landscapes, which continue to delight art enthusiasts from all over the world.

In 2003 an Artist Trail was dedicated to the famous holiday guest in the Salzkammergut, while the Gustav Klimt Center opened in 2012 in Kammer-Schörfling in close proximity to the avenue of Schloss Kammer once painted by Klimt. In 2019, the Klimt Garden was opened in the immediate vicinity of the museum.

A visit to the Klimt Center, a walk along the Klimt Artist Trail or a boat ride on the Attersee will allow you to retrace Klimt’s steps and explore his impressive motifs on land or from the lake.

In 2022, the Klimt Museum, which was awarded the Austrian Museum Quality Seal, celebrated its 10th anniversary and the 160th birthday of the world artist with the special show "A Summer Like Back Then." The last day of opening of the museum was October 16, 2022.