Musa do painter Gustav Klimt, Emilie Louise Flöge born on August 30, 1874 in Vienna, she was a fashion designer and businesswoman. She started working in 1895 with Pauline, her older sister, when she opened a sewing school. Nine years later, they opened a bespoke clothing workshop known as Schwestern Flöge (Flöge Sisters), on one of the main avenues in Vienna. The shop was a success and Gustav Klimt collaborated with the sisters by making some drawings. However, after the Anschluss with the German Third Reich (Annexation of Austria by Hitler) in 1938, the Flöge store lost its most important customers and had to close. In this way, Emilie began to work at home.
Emilie Flöge met Gustav Klimt when her sister Helene married Ernst, the artist’s brother. Four years later, Ernst died and Gustav became his niece’s guardian and protector. In this period, Emilie and Flöge were already active figures in the Wiener Sezessions (Vienna Secession), a group of artists, including painters, architects and designers who refused to follow the academic tradition of the arts.
Constructions
Despite Emilie’s image appearing in many of Klimt’s works, there are no reliable sources stating that the two were lovers. He was never married, but his biography records numerous amorous adventures, some stable and some platonic. Officially, he had three children, but other sources claim there were 14!
He saw woman as a superior being, a dominant figure who was above men. The women portrayed are almost always powerful – even when portraying them as seemingly submissive, it seems like a concession that the woman has made as a noble gesture to the male weakness in resisting her power.
The designer was at Klimt’s side until his death on February 6, 1918. She inherited half of his assets. At the end of World War II, there was a fire in her house. She lost her entire collection of clothes and valuables from the Klimt heirloom.
Officially, Emilie Flöge appeared in four works by the painter. One of them is a portrait made in 1902 and presented at the exhibition of the movement created by Gustav himself and known as Secession.
In the painting, Emilie appears in a blue dress, decorated with Art Nouveau elements.
Although unconfirmed, Emilie Flöge could also have been the model for Klimt’s most famous painting, The Kiss.
(Fontes: Real Life is Elsewhere | Polifonias)