On Tuesday, November 18, Sotheby’s sold Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, once in the collection of Leonard Lauder (same Lauder as Estée Lauder), making it the most expensive Modern artwork ever sold at auction.

Are you a lover of Gustav Klimt, his contemporaries, and the Vienna Secessionist movement, but find yourself a little short of nearly half a billion dollars? Fret not, collecting works on paper is a way to have a piece of your passion for less.

Drawings and Sketches by Gustav Klimt

While original paintings by Gustav Klimt are rare to see at auction and fetch well into the millions, as evidenced by recent turns of events, drawings and sketches by Klimt, often related to his famous paintings, can be found at auction for under $100,000.

Gustav Klimt, Umarmendes Paar, pencil on paper, circa 1907-08. Sold March 2022 for $87,500.

Klimt, a leader of the Vienna Secession movement, rejected the academic style prevalent in Austria and much of Europe at the turn of the century. His artwork often incorporated undulating contour lines, stylized forms, and heavy ornamentation and symbolism. This individual expression was lauded by Vienna’s cultural circles in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early 1900s and served as a significant influence on Klimt’s younger contemporaries. This drawing relates to Klimt’s most recognized work, The Kiss, and another painting, Fulfillment, as he was developing compositions for similar themes at the time.

Gustav Klimt, Stehender weiblicher Akt, Hände hinter dem Rücken verschränkt, reddish orange crayon, circa 1906. Sold March 2022 for $27,500.

 Das Werk von Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss from Das Werk von Gustav Klimt, complete with 50 printed collotype plates including 10 printed in color and heightened in gold and silver, with specially designed intaglio signets printed in gold in lower margins, Vienna, 1918. Sold June 2023 for $68,750.

Das Werk is Gustav Klimt’s only monograph published in his lifetime, and it appeared shortly before his death. Prepared and produced under his artistic supervision between 1908 and 1918, Das Werk was a collaboration between the artist and his close friend, the Viennese publisher, Hugo Heller. Each image is rendered in collotype (heliogravure) and bears its distinctive signet in the lower margin. These gold signets were original designs that Klimt developed between 1908 and 1914 to designate and symbolize each image in this portfolio. The total edition was 70 deluxe copies with an original drawing, and this edition of 230. However, many were lost or misplaced as a result of Heller’s bankruptcy, subsequent move, and Klimt’s death soon after the publication. The Emperor Franz Joseph was the first to buy a copy of the portfolio and, notably, Frank Lloyd Wright owned one as well (See Anthony Alofsin’s Frank Lloyd Wright, Art Collector: Secessionist Prints from the Turn of the Century, 2012).

Keep your eyes peeled for editions of Das Werk von Gustav Klimt at auction. The most recent copy to come up at Swann Galleries sold for $68,7500 in June of 2023.

Österreichische Plakatkunst

Ottokar Mascha, Österreichische Plakatkunst, bound volume, circa 1914. Sold February 2025 for $4,750.

This is the only comprehensive book on Austrian posters during their golden age. It contains works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser, Julius Klinger, Ernst Deutsch and others, boasting 24 color plates and 176 black-and-white illustrations in all. Although undated, it was probably published in 1914, and certainly suffered from appearing right at the beginning of the First World War, as very few copies have survived. In many ways, it can be considered the Maitres de l’Affiche of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the addition of scholarly text to complement the images.

Watercolors by Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele, Schlafender Mann, watercolor, pencil and black crayon, 1910. Sold September 2015 for $750,000.

Egon Schiele’s portraits are among the earliest Expressionist works in Austria. While his contemporaries worked mostly in either the Secessionist Wiener Werkstätte or academic styles, Schiele rejected the norm and instead chose to apply a raw and emotional physicality to his work through his use of color, line and gesture. This style was heavily influenced by Gustav Klimt, whom Schiele met in 1907 and took as his mentor. Klimt facilitated Schiele’s entry into the 1909 Internationale Kunstschau and afforded him connections to various wealthy patrons. The same year, Schiele and other young Viennese artists formally rejected the academic tradition by establishing the Neukunstgruppe, or “New Artists Group,” prompting his family to end financial support for him.

Egon Schiele, Mädchen, lithograph, 1918. Sold March 2021 for $27,500.

While original works by Schiele can fetch up to a million at auction, prints can sell for anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000, making them more affordable for a wider group’s budget.