Gustav Klimt and Emilie Floge Love Story

This is a love story between an artist and his muse which survived World War II and the hatred of the Nazi regime. Not much is known about either person, but we do know that as soon as they met, they were inseparable.

Gustav Klimt was a well known and fashionable painter in Vienna. He was an older gentleman and known as a ladies man. He had several affairs with women in higher class circles. This all changed when he met Emilie Floge who was only 12 at the time. Her father commissioned Klimt to paint portraits of his three daughters. Their lives soon became intertwined when Klimt's brother married one of Emilie's sisters.

Although he was many years her senior, they fell in love. She became his subject for many paintings. The most famous painting is known as The Kiss, showing his eternal love for her. He also helps her with her own work and arranges for her to set up a fashion clothing house. Together, they become the fashionable elite pair of Vienna.

Unfortunately for Klimt, the Nazi party was moving closer and Hitler, the Furher himself, had a distaste for Klimt's paintings. While he was younger, Hitler asked for a private viewing of Klimt's work. After learning that many of the subjects in his paintings were Jewish, Hitler lost interest. When World War II began, Klimt and Emilie's family escaped to the Austrian countryside. Most of Klimt's work still in Vienna was destroyed by the Nazi regime and their home town lay in ruins.

Klimt and Emilie stayed together for many years in the country. Emilie grew to be a strong woman and Klimt's biggest supporter. She remained his muse through the worst of times. Together, they helped raise their niece whose father was killed. She remained the subject for more of his paintings. She supported him through depressions, feelings of rejection and despair, especially when finding out all of his priceless work had been destroyed. Emilie became the only woman who could tame the wildly fashionable Klimt and it was through troublesome times in which they bonded.

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