International Cat Day scoop: pawprints found on kitten-loving Klimt’s print

When staff at the Neue Galerie in New York were preparing the museum’s exhibition Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele: 1918 Centenary (until 3 September), they discovered something dirty on the back of a print by Klimt, lent by a private collector (and we’re not talking about one of the artist’s masturbating nudes). “It’s well known that Klimt loved cats,” says the show’s curator, Janis Staggs, who had always enjoyed one portrait sitter’s recollection that cats ran all over the artist’s studio, and even on to his drawings. A flurry of feline pawprints seen by Staggs has now confirmed the tale (this cat-tastic story has come to light on International Cat Day, an annual celebration of moggies worldwide).