The Secession arose from a group of artists' frustration with the city's system of contemporary art expositions in the 1890s. The Association of Austrian Artists, which operated the Kunstlerhaus (Artists' House) - the only municipal venue for them - favoured the conservative artists who made up the bulk of its members and usually prohibited its members from participating in other shows, suppressing the artists.
These were among the topics debated by smaller groups of the Association's young radical artists, who started meeting in coffee houses and cafes in the mid-1890s, the prominent Viennese nodes of intellectual debate at the time, and still are today. Among them were painters Carl Moll and Koloman Moser, as well as architects Joseph Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann.
On April 3rd, 1897, these younger artists announced their intention to establish a new organization primarily to provide a venue for their work, particularly the decorative arts, and to promote communication with international practitioners, feeling that their voices of progressivism would never be heard otherwise. They applied to the Association of Austrian Artists for permission but were denied.
As a result, the group officially resigned from The Association of Austrian Artists, establishing the Vienna Secession as a separate entity. Gustav Klimt, an internationally renowned painter at the time, was elected the first president. Apart from Klimt, the Secession included names like Olbrich, Hoffmann, Moser, Moll, Max Kurzweil, Wilhelm Bernatzik, Josef Maria Auchentaller, and Ernst Stöhr from the start.
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