AFTER JUNE 30TH - NO LONGER CARRYINGHardcover - Gift Book /BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Artists, Architects, Photographers. Many people know that Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian painter and founding member of the Vienna Secession art group, whose gold-tinged paintings of the female nude include The Kiss. What, perhaps, they don't know is that The Kiss was sold before its completion for 25,000 crowns—over 50 times the amount paid for any other Austrian painting at the time; that he fathered at least 14 illegitimate children; that his fondness for cats led to his studio being overrun by his feline friends; and that in 2006 he set the record for the highest-priced painting in the world, when his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold for $135million.