First Secession exhibition lithograph

The Vienna Secession was an art movement formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects. The first president of the Secession was Gustav Klimt, and Rudolf von Alt was made honorary president. Its official magazine was called Ver Sacrum which featured highly decorative works representative of the period. At the beginning, the Secession had fifty members, and at its first elected the painter Gustav Klimt as its president. It included two painters, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele, who were close to Klimt. Other founding or early members included the architect Josef Hoffmann, the designer Koloman Moser, the designer and architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, and the painters Max Kurzweil, and Czech Alphonse Mucha, who resided in Paris and was already famous for his Art Nouveau posters. The established painter Rudolf von Alt, eighty-five years old, was chosen as the Honorary President of the group, and he led a delegation which an invitation to the Emperor Franz-Joseph to attend the first Exposition.