Vienna Catches Fire

The Secession lit a fuse under the whole city. Younger painters like Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka took Klimt's freedom much further, into raw, nervy portraits of the human psyche.

Others swung the opposite way. Architect Adolf Loos declared ornament a crime and stripped his buildings bare. Around 1900, Vienna had become a workshop for the modern century.

Woman in Gold

Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I has one of the wildest histories in art. The Nazis seized it from its Jewish owners during the war, and an Austrian museum then displayed it for decades.

Adele's niece spent years in court to win it back — a fight retold in the film Woman in Gold. After it was finally returned, the painting sold for $135 million in 2006, then a world record.