Schiele & Klimt: The Art of Secession and Beyond

The Imitation Game

collage klimt fake klimt schiele

The Imitation Game: Klimt & Schiele
A Digital Gallery of Echoes, Forgeries, and Fascinations

This will be a growing archive of visual mischief—where the lines between homage, deception, and digital manipulation blur into a kaleidoscope of Klimt- and Schiele-inspired works. Over the years, I’ve collected many pieces that imitate, distort, or masquerade as the originals. Some are deliberate forgeries. Others are innocent misattributions. Many are reworked images—paintings altered digitally, and in some cases, photographs retouched or staged to evoke the style of Klimt or Schiele. Occasionally, even authentic black-and-white photos are colorized and presented in ways that suggest they belong to the same artistic lineage.

What binds them together is not authenticity, but perception—how viewers respond, how myths form, and how strange traces of their art appear in digital places. Many of these works have been mistaken for genuine pieces, circulating online and in collections with an air of legitimacy that’s often hard to shake.

This is not a catalogue of shame, but a study in fascination. It’s about the allure of style, the persistence of visual memory, and the strange beauty of being “almost” real.

As the collection grows, it may eventually be organized into sections—such as deliberate forgeries, digital manipulations, misattributions, and inspired homages—but for now, the gallery remains fluid.

This gallery began as a personal curiosity: a growing folder of Klimt and Schiele lookalikes, fakes, and oddities that kept surfacing online, especially on social media, and in unexpected places. What interests me are the myths, the misreadings, the moments of “is this real?” that linger longer than they should.

This space is still evolving. It may become more structured over time, or it may stay a bit chaotic. For now, enjoy the ambiguity, the artistry, and the game.

The Family (fake)

  • The Family fake Klimt
    The Family fake Klimt
  • Death and Life 1908 Klimt
    Death and Life, 1908 (completed 1915) – Klimt
  • Three Ages of Woman 1905 Klimt
    Three Ages of Woman, 1905, Klimt
  • The Emigrants Klimt 1909 mother with children Family
    Mother with Two Children aka as the Family, 1909, Klimt

Mother with Twins

  • Mother with Twins, not Klimt
  • Mother with child, a detail from the painting next
  • Three Ages of Woman, 1905, Klimt
  • about Mother Twins Klimt
    A woman explaining how ‘Mother with Twins’ was created

The Dancer (1916), Fake

  • The Dancer, a fake sold online
  • The Dancer, another fake
  • The Dancer Fake
  • Woman Watching the Dancer at Neue Gallerie in New York
  • The Dancer (1916) as painted by Klimt

The Kiss on a Syrian Wall?

Kiss on a Syrian Wall?

The Golden Apple Tree, Coloured?

  • The Golden Apple Tree fake
    The Golden Apple Tree fake
  • The Golden Apple Tree, 1903 – Gustav Klimt (possibly destroyed in 1945)

Real Leda (1917) by Klimt, and fake Ledas

  • Leda, 1917 Gustav Klimt
  • Female Semi‑Nude from the Right in Kneeling‑Cowering Position 1913/14 Gustav Klimt
    Female Semi‑Nude from the Right in Kneeling‑Cowering Position, 1913/14 Gustav Klimt
  • coloured Leda
    Coloured Leda (fake)
  • Coloured Leda (fake)
  • fake golden Leda
    Golden Leda (fake)

The “Klimt” that isn’t Klimt at all

Kenan Malik Spring Meadow photo 2012
Kenan Malik Spring Meadow photo 2012


The Golden Tears That Klimt Never Shed

  • The Imitation Game - Golden Tears (Les larmes d'or / Freya's Tears) - Anne-Marie Zilberman
    Freya’s tears or Golden Tears, saturated version
  • Authentic unmanipulated photograph, mixed technique painting with gold leaf, Golden Tears, Les larmes d'or, Freya's Tears, by Anne-Marie Zilberman, frequently misattributed to Gustav Klimt. The Imitation Game series.
    Freya’s Tears or Golden Tears, original version

A Baroness That Claims to Be Made by Klimt

  • An amateurish oil painting mimicking Gustav Klimt's style, depicting a woman in a decorated robe against a patterned background. [Medium/Technique] painting, Imitation of Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen‑Echt, by Unknown Artist, circa 2020.
    Imitation of Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen‑Echt, c. 2020
  • oil painting on canvas, Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt, Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer, by Gustav Klimt, 1914–1916. Catalogue raisonné: Natter no. 212.
    Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt, 1914–1916, Natter 212

The Klimt–Schiele Photo That Isn’t What It Seems

Black‑and‑white photographic film still, Klimt and Schiele in the studio, Klimt und Schiele im Atelier, by 1980 Austrian TV production Egon Schiele, 1980.
Klimt and Schiele in the studio, 1980, film still

Lost in a Poppy Field

  • Oil on canvas painting, Poppy Field imitation falsely attributed to Gustav Klimt, painter unknown, year unknown. A tall, vertical landscape showing a dense field of red poppies mixed with white flowers, framed by heavy dark green and blue trees on both sides under a dusky sky.
    Attributed to Klimt as Poppy Field, Imitation
  • Oil on canvas, Poppy Field, Mohnfeld, by Gustav Klimt, 1907. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. A square landscape painting depicting a dense, green meadow densely filled with red poppies and white daisies, with narrow fruit trees blending into the field on the left and right, and a tiny strip of background landscape visible at the very top edge.
    Poppy Field, 1907 (Natter 172)
  • Oil on canvas, Flowering Meadow, Blumenwiese, by Gustav Klimt, c. 1904–1905. Private Collection. A perfect square landscape painting dominated by a dense meadow filled with tiny yellow, white, and violet flowers, flanked on the left and right borders by massed green trees under a high horizon.
    Flowering Meadow, c. 1904–1905 (Natter 166)
  • Tempera and oil on canvas, Orchard, Obstgarten, by Gustav Klimt, 1904/1905. Carnegie Museum of Art. A square landscape painting covered in dense points of red, yellow, and blue paint representing a field of flowers, with several slender, vertical tree trunks rising into a canopy of green leaves that fills the upper frame, omitting the sky and horizon.
    Orchard, 1904/1905 (Natter 167)