Vienna · Austria
LEGO Unveils Its Largest Art Set Yet — A 4,000-Piece Reinterpretation of Klimt's The Kiss
Developed with the curatorial team at Vienna's Belvedere Museum, home to the original painting, the set translates Klimt's gold leaf and ornamentation into metallic bricks and layered textures — on sale from 1 August.
The LEGO Group has unveiled its largest LEGO Art Masterpiece set to date: a 4,000-piece, three-dimensional reinterpretation of Gustav Klimt's The Kiss (1907–08), developed in close collaboration with the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, where the original painting has been on permanent display since its completion. Numbered 31221 in LEGO's Art range, the set will be available to LEGO Insiders from 1 August and to the general public from 4 August 2026, priced at $299.99 (£269.99 / €299.99).
The finished model measures roughly 60 by 54 centimetres and combines smooth and textured elements with specially decorated pieces designed to replicate Klimt's golden shimmer and dense ornamental surface — the visual signature of his so-called "golden period" and of the wider Vienna Secession movement he helped define. Decorated circles, spirals, floral motifs and metallic gold bricks build up the embracing couple at the centre of the composition, alongside the LEGO version of Klimt's own signature, worked into the design.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Set name | LEGO Art Gustav Klimt – The Kiss (31221) |
Pieces | 4,000 |
Finished size | Approx. 60 × 54 cm |
Price | $299.99 / £269.99 / €299.99 |
Insiders early access | 1 August 2026 |
General release | 4 August 2026 |
Age rating | 18+ |
Partner institution | Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
Original painting | Oil on canvas, 180 × 180 cm, completed 1909 |
A Curatorial Collaboration, Not Just a Licensing Deal
What distinguishes the set from a standard licensed product is the degree of curatorial involvement from the Belvedere itself. Stephanie Auer, the museum's Curator of 19th- and 20th-Century Art, worked directly with LEGO Master Model Designer Milan Madge on the translation from canvas to brick, describing the process as "a once-in-a-lifetime experience." According to Auer, the two held extended discussions about Klimt's symbolism, ornamentation and technique, and how each element might be represented convincingly in LEGO form — including the flatness and internal composition of the original painting, carefully reworked to stay faithful to its spirit rather than simply mimicking its surface.
Madge, for his part, described the project as "a unique creative challenge," one that required capturing the painting's rich textures, golden tones and intricate detail while remaining true to the original masterpiece. The final design, he said, combines golden LEGO elements with specially decorated pieces to recreate the artwork's distinctive shading and texture within the constraints — and possibilities — of a physical building experience.
Notably, the LEGO interpretation is not a flat reproduction. Builders are meant to stack sections of the piece to create genuine depth, meaning the finished model is, in a literal sense, more three-dimensional than Klimt's original canvas — an interesting inversion for a medium built entirely from stacked, uniform bricks.
Digital Layer: An App and a Podcast
The set is supported by LEGO's Builder app, which offers interactive 3D building instructions and progress tracking, and comes with a QR code linking to a companion podcast featuring Madge and Auer in conversation about Klimt's artistic legacy and the process of adapting The Kiss into brick form. The podcast is available from 1 August via LEGO.com, Spotify and YouTube — positioning the set as much as an educational entry point into Klimt's practice as a display object in its own right.
The set is rated for builders aged 18 and over and includes a built-in wall-hanging mechanism, placing it firmly within LEGO's Art range of display-oriented sets rather than its children's collections.
Part of a Broader Art Line
The Kiss extends a run of LEGO Art sets that have previously reinterpreted major names in painting, including Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet and Keith Haring — part of the company's ongoing effort to translate canonical works of art into a building medium historically associated with architecture and pop culture rather than fine art. At 4,000 pieces, this is the largest of those sets to date, both in piece count and in the scale of institutional collaboration behind it.
For the Belvedere, which drew more than two million visitors in 2025 and ranks among Austria's most-visited museums, the partnership extends the reach of one of its best-known holdings well beyond the gallery walls — into a format, and an audience, that a traditional print or postcard reproduction never could.
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