Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – The Woman in Gold”: The painting at the center of a Nazi controversy – RedDotBlog

Gustave Klimpt’s painting “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – The Woman in Gold” has a long and complicated history, involving Nazis, legal battles, and finally, a new home in New York.

When Klimt accepted a commission from wealthy Jewish banker and sugar producer Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, he could not have known how much trouble it would cause.

Adele Bloch-Bauer

Bloch-Bauer commissioned the portrait of his wife Adele in 1903. He originally planned to give the painting to Adele’s parents as an anniversary present that year, but that didn’t quite end up happening.

Klimt undertook more extensive preparations for the portrait than any other piece he worked on, making multiple preparatory sketches and using an elaborate technique for the final piece that involved using gold and silver leaf and then adding decorative motifs in bas-relief using gesso. He didn’t end up finishing the piece until 1907, and the Bloch-Bauers kept the piece instead of giving it to Adele’s parents.

This painting was the final piece Klimt created during his “golden phase,” but it wasn’t the first or the last time he painted Adele Bloch-Bauer. She had modeled for Judith and the Head of Holofernes in 1901, and he painted a second portrait of her in 1912. It’s possible that Klimt and Adele had an affair, though a lack of evidence has made it a controversial topic.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Oil and Gold Leaf on Canvas, 55″ x 55″

Whatever the nature of Klimt’s relationship with Mrs. Bloch-Bauer, she and her husband loved the portraits. When Adele made her will, she requested that all the couple’s Klimt paintings go to the Austrian Galerie Belvedere, though legally they belonged to Ferdinand, who chose not to honor her wish, at least not immediately after her death. Instead, he hung the portraits in his late wife’s room as a shrine to her.

The jeweled choker Adele wears both in the gold portrait and in the Judith painting she modeled for had been a gift from Ferdinand, and a little more than ten years after his wife’s death, he gave the necklace to his niece Maria as a wedding present.

The next year, in 1938, Ferdinand fled Vienna following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. He left the paintings behind, and the Nazis seized them and much of his other property, falsely claiming that Ferdinand had evaded taxes of 1.4 million Reichsmarks. Hitler and other Nazi leaders claimed pieces from the Bloch-Bauer collection at reduced prices. One Nazi leader ultimately took the choker gifted to Maria Altmann and gave it to his wife.

Eventually, the portrait of Adele was transferred to the Galerie Belvedere and retitled Lady in Gold to remove all reference to its Jewish subject.

In 1945, the year he died, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer made a final will that left his entire estate to his nephew and two nieces.

He didn’t name the paintings specifically, thinking they had been lost forever.

Neue Galerie Director Renée Price, Maria Altmann, and President and Co- Founder Ronald S. Lauder, 2006

In 1998, long after the war and Bloch-Bauer’s death, the Austrian government introduced the Art Restitution Act to find out which works of art should be returned to their rightful owners.

Marie Altmann filed a claim with the restitution committee for the return of six Klimt paintings. The committee claimed that the museum legally owned the paintings because of Adele’s will.

After a lengthy legal battle, Altmann and the Austrian government came to a settlement, and five of the six paintings, including the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, were returned to Altmann. She sold the piece to businessman and art collector Ronald Lauder, who placed the piece in Neue Gallery in New York.

Woman in Gold, a 2015 movie based on the story of the recovery of the woman in gold. Starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds

In conclusion, the painting “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – The Woman in Gold” by Gustave Klimpt has a long and complicated history. The painting was originally commissioned by wealthy Jewish banker and sugar producer Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, but ended up being kept by the Bloch-Bauers instead of being given to Adele’s parents. It is possible that Klimpt and Adele had an affair, though a lack of evidence has made it a controversial topic. Ferdinand fled Vienna in 1938, leaving the paintings behind, and the Nazis seized them and much of his other property. eventually, the portrait of Adele was transferred to the Galerie Belvedere and retitled Lady in Gold to remove all reference to its Jewish subject. In 1998, the Austrian government introduced the Art Restitution Act with the intent of finding out which works of art should be returned to their rightful owners. Marie Altmann filed a claim with the restitution committee for the return of six Klimpt paintings, and after a lengthy legal battle, five of the six paintings, including the “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – The Woman in Gold”, were returned to Altmann.

What do you think of the painting “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer – The Woman in Gold”? Do you think the Austrian government should have returned the painting to Marie Altmann? Do you think Ronald Lauder should have placed the painting in the Neue Gallery in New York?

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