Vienna in 1886 was a city of elegant cafes, thriving artistic communities and grand opera houses. It was during this time that twelve-year-old Emilie Flöge met moody and brilliant artist, Gustav Klimt. In The Painted Kiss, Elizabeth Hickey follows the developing relationship between Klimt and Emilie and their love affair. 

When Klimt is hired by Emilie’s bourgeois father to give her drawing lessons, the artist introduces naïve Emilie to a culture of immoral artists and musicians, wanton models, and rich patrons. This is a world that both terrifies and fascinates the young girl.

As Klimt becomes Emilie’s private art tutor and mentor, spending his summers with the Flöge family at their summerhouse, we see Emilie blossom into a sanguine older woman—becoming mistress of one of the twentieth century’s most fascinating artists, as well as owner of an exclusive Viennese fashion house, which Klimt helped design.

Author Elizabeth Hickey brilliantly renders the fascinating milieu of the time and brings to life a woman who is never sure of her place in Klimt’s life.  Nevertheless, she continually supports him through scandal, tragedy, self-doubt and success. Klimt emerges as an enigmatic and sexually compelling figure, and in spite of the turbulent relationship sees Emilie as his lifelong love. In fact it was Emilie’s name he whispered with his last breath and was her face, which inspired Klimt to create his famous painting, The Kiss.      

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