14 July - Gustav Klimt born in a suburb of Vienna

Edouard Manet paints Le dejeuner sur l'herbe

American President Abraham Lincoln assassinated. American Civil War ends

Atlantic Cable completed, the first successful cable allowing transatlantic telegraph communication.

Alfred Nobel patents dynamite, and demonstrates his explosive for the first time.

Austro-Hungarian Compromise between the Austrian Habsburg dynasty and the Hungarians creates the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution ratifies an end to slavery in the US, and guarantees African Americans full citizenship.

December 15 - Josef Hoffmann born in Pirnitz, Moravia (now in Czech Republic).

Paul Cézanne makes his first painting of the Mont Saint-Victoire. His later paintings have a great influence on Picasso and Matisse.

Paul Cézanne Montagne Sainte Victoire 1905-6.
Tateenlarge

The first commercially viable plastic is registered as Celluloid.

Rome declared capital of newly-unified Italy

Unification of Germany and proclamation of William I of Prussia as German Emperor

Stock market crash in Vienna

After repeated rejection from the Paris Academie exhibitions, a group including Monet, Renoir and Degas organise their own exhibition. It is greeted with derision with Monet's Impression, Sunrise particularly singled out. The work ends up giving its name to the movement – Impressionism

Klimt enrolls at the then recently founded Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule (Vienna Arts and Crafts School). Klimt spent seven years at college, initially aiming to become a drawing teacher in a junior high school. Gustav's two younger brothers, Ernst (1864–92) and Georg (1867–1932) also studied at the same college.

Auguste Rodin exhibits The Age of Bronze in Brussels and Paris

Thomas Edison announces his invention the phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound.

Russo-Turkish War ends. Ottoman Empire loses much of its European territory including Serbia, Montenegro and Romania

Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly hanged

Alexander II of Russia, Emperor of the Russian Empire assassinated.

At college Gustav and Ernst Klimt meet Franz Matsch (1861–1942), and the three friends decide to join forces as the Künstler Compagnie (the Painters' Company), gaining many prestigious commissions for decorative paintings and murals for luxury interiors.

American outlaw Jesse James shot.

First journey of the original train and ferry route of the Orient Express from Paris (via Vienna) to Istanbul.

Georges Seurat paints his Bathers at Asnières applying his pointillist technique to a large scale work.

Timişoara (known as Little Vienna) in Romania (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) becomes the first city in mainland Europe to have electric street lighting.

German engineer, Karl Benz designs and builds the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine.

Statue of Liberty, presented to the United States by the people of France, is dedicated.

US pharmacist John Styth Pemberton founds the Coca-Cola Company.

Vincent van Gogh paints his Sunflower works.

Wilhelm II is crowned Emperor of the German Empire.

Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia (heir of Emperor Franz Josef I) commits suicide.

Eiffel Tower completed – then the world's tallest tower.

The Painters' Company are commissioned to create paintings for the stairwell in the newly constructed Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Klimt becomes a member of the Künstlerhaus-Genossenschaft, at that time the only professional group representing Austrian artists.

Ernst Klimt marries Helene Flöge (1871–1936). Gustav Klimt makes his first pastel portrait of Helene's sister Emilie (1874–1952), an accomplished artist, fashion designer and business woman who is to become a lifelong companion.

Paul Gauguin travels to Tahiti beginning a prolific period of paintings.

Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge in the garden of his studio in the eighth district of Vienna, Josefstaedter Strasse 21. Courtesy Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz enlarge

Klimt's brother Ernst dies. Following many artistic differences, Ernst's death leads to the final dissolution of the Painters' Company.

Klimt finishes Two Girls with an Oleander.

The Munich Secession founded. The Munich Secession is the earliest group to protest against an established artists' association by breaking away.

Edvard Munch paints The Scream

Thomas Edison Laboratories holds first public demonstration of the Kinetograph, the first practical moving picture camera, and the Kinetoscope, a device for viewing the film.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Jewish background is convicted for treason – sparking a scandal known as the Dreyfus affair.

The Lumière brothers hold their first public screening of projected motion pictures.

Wilhelm Röntgen takes first X-ray photograph

The Founding of the Vienna Secession
In April Klimt officially informs the board of the artists' society (Künstlerhaus-Genossenschaft), and the Viennese press about the foundation of the Association of Austrian Artists (Vereinigung bildender Künstler Üsterreichs – Secession). Founder members included the painter Carl Moll (1861–1945), the designer Koloman (Kolo) Moser (1868–1918) and the architects Josef Maria Olbrich (1870–1956), Otto Wagner (1841–1918) and Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956). Klimt is elected president.

Like similar contemporary movements in other European cities, the Secession broke away from the conservative artistic establishment. They were for the freedom of individual artistic work and hoped to forge closer connections with the international avant-garde. They embarked on a programme of exhibitions on a scale that has not been seen since. Klimt, Josef Hoffmann and Carl Moll were responsible for the exhibitions until 1905.

Klimt begins to spend his summers on the Attersee (Lake Atter) with Emilie Flöge; making his first landscape paintings.

The National Gallery of British Art opens on Millbank in London. It becomes known as the Tate Gallery, after its founder Sir Henry Tate.

Bookplate of the Viennese Secession c.1900. Courtesy Private collection, Viennaenlarge

January
The Secession publishes the first issue of the journal Ver Sacrum.

March – June
The Secession presents its first exhibition. Focusing on international art, it is a great public success with more than 56,000 visitors.

12 November
The Secession opens its own exhibition space in Vienna's Karlsplatz, built by Joseph Maria Olbrich.

Berlin Secession is founded, led by Max Liebermann and later Lovis Corinth.

Klimt paints Nuda Veridas

Drug firm Bayer registers aspirin as a trademark.

Paperclip patented

Klimt sparks off a heated debate exhibiting the first of his Faculty Paintings, Philosophy. Commissioned by the University of Vienna, and first shown at the sixth Secession exhibition, it causes a stir, and eighty-seven professors from the University sign a petition demanding that the Ministry of Education revoke the commission. When Philosophy travels to the Paris World Fair however, it is awarded the Gold Medal.

At the eighth Secession exhibition, devoted to contemporary applied arts, works by the Glasgow Four: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frances Macdonald Mackintosh, Frances Macdonald MacNair and Hubert MacNair are shown.

Klimt's second faculty painting Medicine, is shown at the tenth Secession exhibition and again causes a sensation.

Klimt paints Fir Forest

Queen Victoria dies, aged 81, after 63 years on the United Kingdom throne

Marconi transmits the first transatlantic telegraphic radio messages

Hubert Cecil Booth patents the first powered vacuum cleaner

April – June
The Secession present the fourteenth exhibition, known as the Beethoven exhibition. The focal point of the exhibition is a life-sized sculpture of Beethoven on a coloured marble throne by Max Klinger. Klimt shows his Beethoven Frieze a painted frieze on the theme of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Klimt also completes Portrait of Marie Henneberg a painting destined for the Villa Henneberg designed by Josef Hoffmann. This is their first collaboration on a domestic interior.

First electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer Electric, is produced.

Coronation of Edward VII as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India.

Inspired by the British Arts and Crafts Movement, Josef Hoffmann, Kolo Moser and the industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer found the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop). They aim to revalue the role of the applied arts and 'ennoble' everyday life. The Wiener Werkstätte produces everyday items; jewellery, fabrics for clothing, furniture, ceramics and so on that aspire to the ideals of the Gesamtkunstwerk – the total art work or synthesis of the arts: life filled with art. Designers and craftsmen were given free reign and were to use only the 'best materials'.

Klimt paints Golden Rider – Life is a Struggle

Viktor Zuckerkandl (a wealthy industrialist) contracts Josef Hoffmann for the Sanatorium Purkersdorf near Vienna. More of a hotel than a hospital, it is the first building with an interior designed exclusively by the Wiener Werkstätte.

Klimt paints Portrait of Hermine Gallia

Emilie Flöge opens a fashion salon in Vienna. All the latest fashions are showcased, including 'reform clothing' with free-flowing forms and no tight corset.

Left: Emilie Flöge in an art noveau dress with muffs in the fashion Salon Sisters Flöge. She is leaning on a chair constructed by Kolo Moser. Right: Emilie Flöge in an Art Nouveau Style Dress c. 1910. © IMAGNO / Collection Christian Brandstätter, Viennaenlarge

The group around Klimt (including Hoffmann and Moll) leave the Vienna Secession after a crucial vote. They remain dedicated to the importance of the applied arts alongside the more academic arts.

Klimt paints Three Ages of Woman

Gustav Klimt The Three Ages of Woman 1905. Courtesy Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Romeenlarge

Die Brücke (The Bridge) German expressionist artists' group formed

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Two Women 1912
© DACS, 2002enlarge

Henri Matisse and Andre Derain and others painting in pure bright hues share their first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. A critic in a daily newspaper describes them as "Fauves" – wild beasts.

Klimt travels to London for the Imperial-Royal Austrian Exhibition at London's Earl's Court, where he meets Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Klimt meets Egon Schiele. Klimt's work is to have a decisive influence on Schiele.

Picasso paints Demoiselles D'Avignon

Klimt and the Austrian artists who left the Secession with him show work as a group in Kunstschau (Artshow). Hoffmann is responsible for the architectural design of the show and the exhibits cover every area of life from a child's room to a designed cemetery. They publicly put so-called high art on a par with the applied arts.

Klimt's major work in the show The Kiss is acquired by the Austrian State.

Internationale Kunstschau is presented, devoted to contemporary European painting. Egon Schiele makes his debut in this show.

Klimt paints Judith II.

Gustav Klimt Judith II 1909
Courtesy Musei Civici Veneziani, Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna di Ca' Pesaro, Veniceenlarge

The art movement Futurism is launched by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: his Manifesto of Futurism is published on the front page of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro

Matisse begins work on The Dance and Music

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's building for Glasgow School of Art is completed

Klimt shows at the 9th Venice Biennale

Klimt awarded First Prize at the International Art Exhibition in Rome.

Palais Stoclet completed. Industrialist Adolf Stoclet had lived for several years in Vienna and had become acquainted with Hoffmann through Carl Moll. Hoffmann designed the Stoclet's mansion in Brussels, with Klimt commissioned to create a marble frieze (the Stoclet Frieze) for the dining-room.

Wassily Kandinsky resigns from the Munich New Association of Artists and mounts a rival exhibition with the German artist Franz Marc - the beginning of the highly influential Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group, which drew together artists from different areas of visual and folk art, music and theatre, united by a desire to express spiritual values in their work.

Marcel Duchamp paints Nude descending a Staircase

Balkan Wars begin – two consecutive wars fought among the countries of the Balkan Peninsula for possession of territories still held by the Ottoman Empire.

Hoffmann is commissioned to design the Gallia apartment and country house for the Primavesi family

Roger Fry's Omega Workshops Ltd open in London's Bloomsbury, aiming to remove the false division between the fine and decorative art. Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry named as Directors.

May
Fritz Waerndorfer is declared bankrupt (perhaps due to the financial demands of the Werkstatte) and emigrates to the US.

British avant-garde movement Vorticism formed in London by the artist, writer and polemicist, Wyndham Lewis.

Wyndham Lewis Vorticist Composition 1915.
© Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust (a registered charity)enlarge

Panama Canal opens

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, begins First World War

Mahatma Gandhi returns to India from South Africa to join the struggle for Indian independence

June
First World War breaks out.

Otto Primavesi becomes Commercial Director of the Wiener Werkstätte

Kasimir Malevich's Dynamic Suprematism is first seen at the '0,10' (Zero-Ten) exhibition in Petrograd, including works such as Black Square (1915) which reduce abstract painting to a previously unheard of geometrical simplicity.

Satirical nightclub in Zurich, Cabaret Voltaire is set up by Hugo Ball, along with a magazine - the first Dada publication.

Einstein publishes his paper on the general theory of relativity

Klimt is elected honorary member of Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

Klimt paints Baby/Cradle

11 January
Klimt suffers a stroke in his apartment and after a short stay in hospital dies from pneumonia on 6 February.

Egon Schiele makes a last drawing of him in the morgue of the General Hospital.

First World War ends. Germany signs an armistice with the Allies

Execution of the Romanov Tsar Nicholas II and his family at Ekaterinburg Soviet Russia moves its capital from Petrograd to Moscow