Lady in White

Lady in White, painted in 1917–18 and left unfinished at Klimt's death from a stroke in February 1918, represents the final phase of his artistic development and the tragic incompleteness of a career cut short by the post-war influenza pandemic. By 1917 Klimt had moved decisively away from the strict ornamental programme of his Golden Phase toward a more expressive, colouristically free manner showing his sustained engagement with Fauvism and the work of Matisse, whose impact was widely felt in Vienna after the 1909 Kunstschau exhibitions. The unfinished state of the canvas, particularly in the lower portion of the figure, is historically significant as evidence of Klimt's working process: he characteristically built a portrait from the face downward, establishing the psychological identity of the sitter before resolving the body and dress. The woman's identity is uncertain. The painting entered the Belvedere collection and stands among the group of Klimt's final unfinished canvases — including Adam and Eve and The Bride — that collectively document the final directions of his thinking. The looseness and spontaneity of the unresolved passages influenced later Viennese expressionism.

The face and upper figure are handled with the deft, assured brushwork of Klimt's mature portraiture, while the lower canvas shows bare priming and rough preliminary drawing. The white dress is suggested through thin paint and gestural strokes that demonstrate the fluid alla prima technique he used in his final years.