Klimt at Villa Freya in Asolo: beauty and nature in art graphics

The city of Asolo, in the province of Treviso in the Veneto region, welcomes from 26 September the exhibition “Klimt a Villa Freya. Bellezza e natura nelle grafiche d’arte” (Klimt at Villa Freya: beauty and nature in art graphics), dedicated to the great figure of Gustav Klimt, as The Flora Journal reports. This is the first exhibition ever organised in the historic Villa Freya and, at the same time, the first exhibition dedicated to Klimt in the city of Asolo.

The exhibition, curated by Elena Ledda, brings around 70 works from private collections: rare art collotypes, original drawings and original copies of the Viennese Secession magazine “Ver Sacrum” — some exhibited to the public for the first time. The central themes are beauty and nature: landscapes and natural elements set against female figures, the two main dimensions of the Viennese artist’s poetics.

According to Villa Freya’s official website, the exhibition stays open until 24 January 2027 and takes place in the villa’s historic rooms, which open to the public for the first time as an exhibition space. Villa Freya is the historic residence where the English traveller and writer Freya Stark lived part of her life — the villa was donated to her by her friend Herbert Young — while its romantic English garden preserves archaeological remains, including the ruins of a 1st-century Roman theatre.

The villa’s restoration began in 2006, on the initiative of Diego Carron and his wife Monica Masin, together with their family, returning the building to its former splendour.

The entrance ticket costs 15 euros and includes the visit to the exhibition and the archaeological-botanical park; the reduced price is 12 euros.