The history behind the search to retrieve a stolen masterpiece of 20th Century art
The background
In 1938 Nazi Germany used the threat of force to annex its smaller neighbour, Austria. In effect, Austria now became part of the German Third Reich. A policy of anti-semitism was swiftly implemented. Thousands of Jews were rounded up and incarcerated; Jewish properties and businesses were confiscated. A priority target for top Nazi leaders was the artwork purcahed that had been purchased by some of Vienna's leading Jews. These included many examples of earler twentieth century art, now acknowledged as masterpieces.
Among these stolen culturally and financially valuable artworks, were several works by Gustav Klimt, a significant early twentieth century artist from Vienna. The movie is based on one of these paintings - the so-called 'Gold' portrait (1907 ) of his patron, the Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer. The Nazis displayed the painting in Vienna's Austrian Gallery, where it remained for decades.
But in 1998 an Austrian journalist, Hubertus Czernin, published his investigation into what had happened to Nazi art thefts and raised the issue of restitution for their original owners. His book on the subject used the 'Gold' portrait as its cover.Eventually Czernin's research enabled Maria Altmann, the sole surviving heir of the Block-Bauer estate to use the legal expertise of E. Randolph Schoenberg to sue the Austrian government in 2004 in an attempt to claim the painting for Altmann.
Among these stolen culturally and financially valuable artworks, were several works by Gustav Klimt, a significant early twentieth century artist from Vienna. The movie is based on one of these paintings - the so-called 'Gold' portrait (1907 ) of his patron, the Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer. The Nazis displayed the painting in Vienna's Austrian Gallery, where it remained for decades.
But in 1998 an Austrian journalist, Hubertus Czernin, published his investigation into what had happened to Nazi art thefts and raised the issue of restitution for their original owners. His book on the subject used the 'Gold' portrait as its cover.Eventually Czernin's research enabled Maria Altmann, the sole surviving heir of the Block-Bauer estate to use the legal expertise of E. Randolph Schoenberg to sue the Austrian government in 2004 in an attempt to claim the painting for Altmann.
What was the 'Gold' Portrait?
The 1907 painting depicts Adele Bloch-Bauer,the wife of the wealthy Austrian banker and sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. At the Bloch-Bauer's Vienna mansion she was the hostess of a legendary artistic salon, in which the city's glitterati feted Vienna's artistic talent. The magnate commissioned the famous Symbolist artist Gustav Klimt to paint his wife. It took Klimt, who was rumored to be Adele's lover, three years to complete the portrait. It was originally intended as a present for her parents' wedding anniversary.Adele's husband was so pleased with the painting that he commissioned another from Klimt. This was completed in 1912.
The 1907 portrait was significant for several reasons. It was the product of hundreds of drawings and sketches carefully honed to finally produce a dazzling art nouveau masterpiece that revealed not only the subject's personality but also her upper-class bourgeois social and intellectual milieu.
The intensely luminous golden tones of the portrait are the results of Klimt applying gold leaf directly to the canvas. It also reveals Klimt's controversial use of decoration and design in art. He sought to produce a Gesamtkunstwerk -'total work of art' -in which the fine arts and the decorative arts merged. Realistic and abstract elements are combined. The painting also shows another feature of Klimt's style: using motifs from Byzantine, Greek (even Minoan) and Egyptian art. For example, there are clusters of eyes, geometric circles, spirals, deltas, ovals, all with erotic connotations. A close examination shows myriad small A's and B's dotted amongst the gold. Her pale face, shoulders and arms make a counterpoint to the sumptuous gold of her dress and background. he portrait resembles a Byzantine icon, with Adele presented as an object of veneration, almost a religious idol. It shows the influence of the sixth Century moasics of Byzantine empress Theodora which Klimt saw at Ravenna. The vibrancy of the colours contrasts with the subject appearing to confined and two-dimensional within the confines of the painting's frameframe
The 1907 portrait was significant for several reasons. It was the product of hundreds of drawings and sketches carefully honed to finally produce a dazzling art nouveau masterpiece that revealed not only the subject's personality but also her upper-class bourgeois social and intellectual milieu.
The intensely luminous golden tones of the portrait are the results of Klimt applying gold leaf directly to the canvas. It also reveals Klimt's controversial use of decoration and design in art. He sought to produce a Gesamtkunstwerk -'total work of art' -in which the fine arts and the decorative arts merged. Realistic and abstract elements are combined. The painting also shows another feature of Klimt's style: using motifs from Byzantine, Greek (even Minoan) and Egyptian art. For example, there are clusters of eyes, geometric circles, spirals, deltas, ovals, all with erotic connotations. A close examination shows myriad small A's and B's dotted amongst the gold. Her pale face, shoulders and arms make a counterpoint to the sumptuous gold of her dress and background. he portrait resembles a Byzantine icon, with Adele presented as an object of veneration, almost a religious idol. It shows the influence of the sixth Century moasics of Byzantine empress Theodora which Klimt saw at Ravenna. The vibrancy of the colours contrasts with the subject appearing to confined and two-dimensional within the confines of the painting's frameframe
 Gustav Klimt
WHO WAS GUSTAV KLIMT?
Klimt was born into poverty near Vienna in 1862, the second of seven children. His father was a gold engraver. Klimt and his two brothers all showed artistic abilities from an early age, with Gustav gaining entry into Vienna's prestigious School of Arts and Crafts. He soon began painting murals and ceiling in Vienna's big public buildings. But these commissions ended in 1900 after his ceiling paintings for the University of Vienna's great hall were condemned as pornographic. All three paintings were destroyed in 1945 when SS troops set fire to the Schloss Immendorf, the castle in which they and other artworks were stored. From 1900 on Klimt's entered his so-called 'Golden' period, specialising in luminous portraits of some of Vienna's high bourgeoisie women, most of them luminaries of the city's rich cultural scene and intellectual scene at that time. Their intense eroticism scandalised polite Viennese opinion but was welcomed by the artist's subjects and by those who believed that art should shock. |
Klimt's 1912 portrait of Bloch-Bauer.
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Klimt, however, never claimed he was revolutionising art at all. He disliked travel, wrote no autobiography or artistic manifesto. He slept with many of his models and subjects of his portraits, fathering possibly as many as fourteen children. Despite his energetci love life, he seems to have lived peacefully and remained on good terms with his countless lovers. He claimed only that "I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night... Who ever wants to know something about me... ought to look carefully at my pictures."
Klimt appears to have slept with many of the women whose portraits he painted. Klimt apparently fathered at least three and as many as fourteen children, kept a full-time mistress and lived with his mother until a couple of years before his death in 1918. KLimt was one of the victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Klimt appears to have slept with many of the women whose portraits he painted. Klimt apparently fathered at least three and as many as fourteen children, kept a full-time mistress and lived with his mother until a couple of years before his death in 1918. KLimt was one of the victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The sheer erotic imagery and intensity of "The Kiss" [1908] still impresses over a century after it was painted.
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"Maeda Primavesi"[1912] shows Klimt's portrait style without the shimmering gold embellishments.
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Who was Adele Bloch-Bauer?
Unlile Klimt, Adele was born into a life of privilege and wealth. She was the seventh child of the famous Viennese banker (and director of the Orient Railway) Moritz Bauer. Intelligent, mercurial and intellectual, apparently frustrated by the restrictions her social milieu imposed on determined and clever young men, she married early, at age eighteen. Her husband, seventeen years older, was Ferdinand Bloch, an industrialist and her brother-in-law. In 1917 both men added their wives' maiden name to their surname, hence Bloch-Bauer. Adele's marriage produced no children, eventually resulting in a contentious will that later caused so much controversy.
Her distinctive narrow face which seemed to simultaneously convey arrogance, privilege and suffering perfectly captured the intellectual milieu of the world of Vienna salons in the early twentieth century. Adele and her husband kept an extensive art and porcelain collection in their luxurious home. After Klimt's death in 1918 she kept one room as shrine to Klimt, displaying his paintings there as well as a photo of the artist.
Adele died suddenly of meningitis in 1923. Her husband turned the Klimt room into a memorial space for his wife.
Her distinctive narrow face which seemed to simultaneously convey arrogance, privilege and suffering perfectly captured the intellectual milieu of the world of Vienna salons in the early twentieth century. Adele and her husband kept an extensive art and porcelain collection in their luxurious home. After Klimt's death in 1918 she kept one room as shrine to Klimt, displaying his paintings there as well as a photo of the artist.
Adele died suddenly of meningitis in 1923. Her husband turned the Klimt room into a memorial space for his wife.
Adele Bloch-Bauer above left and above right, Klimt's 1901 allegorical portrait "Judith", for which Adele was probably the model. The painting of the Jewish heroine (she saved the Israelites by beheading Holofernes) caused a scandal at the time.
Two Wills and Their Consequences
Adele's will contained a seemingly innocuous clause. She requested that, after his death, her husband donate the couple's Klimt paintings to the Austrian Gallery in Vienna. But in 1938 Hitler took over Austria in the Anschluss and merged it into the Third Reich. The Nazis systematically looted the art collections of Austria's Jews. Some pieces were sold off for private gain, some exhibited in museums and some incorporated into the collections of top Nazis like Goering. Similarly the Bloch-Bauer's collection of Klimts and other art works were "Aryanized."
Unlike any of his fellow Jews, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer understood Hitler's intentions and fled, initially to Czechoslovakia and finally to the safety of Zurich. He lived there - "totally impoverished" in his own words - until his death just after the war ended in 1945. He requested that the stolen art works be traced and recovered. Crucially, his will also named his nephew and nieces, including Maria Altmann, as the inheritors of his estate. But the art works remained scattered for decades, some in private collections, some in Swiss bank vaults, others exhibited publicly in museums. The Austrian authorities appear not to have made any attempt to fulfill their legal obligation to return the works to surviving family members. For years Austria denied that it had any obligation to return hundreds of looted art works to their rightful owners / descendants.
Adele's will contained a seemingly innocuous clause. She requested that, after his death, her husband donate the couple's Klimt paintings to the Austrian Gallery in Vienna. But in 1938 Hitler took over Austria in the Anschluss and merged it into the Third Reich. The Nazis systematically looted the art collections of Austria's Jews. Some pieces were sold off for private gain, some exhibited in museums and some incorporated into the collections of top Nazis like Goering. Similarly the Bloch-Bauer's collection of Klimts and other art works were "Aryanized."
Unlike any of his fellow Jews, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer understood Hitler's intentions and fled, initially to Czechoslovakia and finally to the safety of Zurich. He lived there - "totally impoverished" in his own words - until his death just after the war ended in 1945. He requested that the stolen art works be traced and recovered. Crucially, his will also named his nephew and nieces, including Maria Altmann, as the inheritors of his estate. But the art works remained scattered for decades, some in private collections, some in Swiss bank vaults, others exhibited publicly in museums. The Austrian authorities appear not to have made any attempt to fulfill their legal obligation to return the works to surviving family members. For years Austria denied that it had any obligation to return hundreds of looted art works to their rightful owners / descendants.
Who was Maria Altmann?
Maria Altmann [L], Helen Mirren as Maria [R]
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Young Maria Altmann in 1930s.
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Maria Altmann in front of the painting.
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Maria Altmann [1916 - 2011] was Adele Bloch-Bauer's niece. When she was nineteen she married Frederick Altmann, brother of a prominent Austrian industrialist. But when Hitler took over Austria the next year, Frederick was held in Dachau concentration camp as a hostage in order to force his brother, who had gone to France, to hand over his large and prosperous textile factory to the Nazis. On Frederick's release, he and Maria fled for safety, leaving all their property to be confiscated by the Nazis. Eventually they were able to escape to America. Eventually Maria, an astute business woman, started a successful clothing business in California. In 1945 she became a naturalized American citizen. In that year the childless Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer died. His will left his estate to a nephew and two nieces, one of whom was Maria Altmann.
It wasn't until Altmann was eighty-two that the famed Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin provided evidence that she could claim legal title to the five Klein paintings bequeathed by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and seized by the Nazis in 1938. The most famous, the 'Gold' portrait of her aunt, had been on display in the Austrian National Gallery in Vienna for years. But the Austrian government denied she had any claim. The gallery even provided a notice for visitors, claiming the portrait was "bequeathed by Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer."
Altmann's legal case was taken up by Randol Schoenberg (grandson of the famed composer, who had been one of the habitual attendees at Adele and Frederick's Vienna soirees. Schoenberg shrewdly who pursued the matter in U.S. courts, thus avoiding the expense and administrative and other difficulties of using the Austrian court system.
It wasn't until Altmann was eighty-two that the famed Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin provided evidence that she could claim legal title to the five Klein paintings bequeathed by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and seized by the Nazis in 1938. The most famous, the 'Gold' portrait of her aunt, had been on display in the Austrian National Gallery in Vienna for years. But the Austrian government denied she had any claim. The gallery even provided a notice for visitors, claiming the portrait was "bequeathed by Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer."
Altmann's legal case was taken up by Randol Schoenberg (grandson of the famed composer, who had been one of the habitual attendees at Adele and Frederick's Vienna soirees. Schoenberg shrewdly who pursued the matter in U.S. courts, thus avoiding the expense and administrative and other difficulties of using the Austrian court system.
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The movie's Altmann (Helen Mirren) and Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) (left) and the real couple (right), in front of Klimt's second painting of Maria's aunt. Middle: Maria with what appears to be a copy of the iconic portrait .
Why does the movie downplay the crucial role of journalist Hubertus Czernin?
The movie Hubertus Czernin (bearded, on right) and the real Czernin, below, at a press conference.
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"Without him [Czernin] there would have been nothing" -Maria Altmann
One disappointing feature of Woman in Gold is the movie's downplaying of the crucial part that Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin played in unearthing vital evidence that enabled Maria Altmann to recover the artworks stolen from her family. Czernin's life would make a potentially fascinating movie in itself. An Austrian , born in 1956, he died of mastocytosis in 2006, a few days before the portrait he had done so much to recover was sold by Maria Altmann for a then record $135 million - making it the most expensive painting in the world. Czernin was born into an aristocratic Viennese family and specialized in art history at University. When he became a journalist Czernin developed an expertise in investigating Austria's Nazi past - a murky and dangerous topic. Many powerful Austrians had good reasons for wanting their involvement with the Nazis to remain concealed. In the mid-1980s Czernin became famous for exposing the Nazi background of the Austrian President and former Secretary-General of the UN Karl Waldheim. He then began examining that had happened to art looted by the Nazis from Austrian Jewish families. In 1998 he showed five of the Bloch-Bauer owned Klimt paintings - including the now renamed 'Woman in Gold'- had been handed over by the Nazis to the Vienna Gallery in 1941.He also exposed how the Austrian government and art authorities had concealed the the true ownership of the five Klimts, and documented their refusal to compensate the Bloch-Bauer descendants. Although you wouldn't guess it from the movie, Czernin travelled to Los Angeles to alert Maria Altmann of the documentary evidence he had discovered. It was after this that she decided (encouraged by Czernin) to take legal action to recover the art. Accordingly, she hired Randol Schoenberg, grandson of the famed Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, who had wisely fled to the USA. Czernin continued to contribute to the process of recovering the paintings. Despite ill-health, he continued reporting on the court case. His articles caused the Austrian government and the Vienna museum considerable embarrassment as he exposed their lies, cover-ups and obstructions. |
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In April, 2005 New York District Judge Edward Korman awarded Altmann and several relatives USD 21.8 million from the Swiss Banks Fund. This vast sum was granted because a Swiss bank which Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer appointed as trustee of his sugar refinery in 1938 handed the business to an industrialist with ties to the Nazis in 1939.
In 2014 Edgar Degas' masterpiece "Chanteuses" was sold at Christie's Auction for $US11 million. Its ownershio was listed as "heirs of Ludwig and Margret Kainer". The Kainers were a Jewish couple whose famous collection of modern art had been stolen by the Nazis. But the rightful Kainer "heirs" didn't get any of the $11 million. They weren't even notified of the auction of the Degas or the sale of other paintings owned by the couple. In fact, the so-called "heirs" were a sham foundation created by the Swiss banking giant UBS. The real Kainer heirs claim that the foundation was a cover to cheat them out of their inheritance.They are now suing USB. (Heirs Sue Bank Over Sale, New York Times, 117/10/2014 |
Degas' famous "Danseuses".
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The movie omits much of the complicated legal manoeuvring that followed Schoenbrg's advocacy for Maria Altmann. Although it underplays Czernin's crucial role in obtaining documentary evidence - especially about Frederich Bloch-Bauer's 1946 will - Woman in Gold outlines the main arguments made by Schoenberg in his long legal struggle on Maria's behalf. Schoenberg used Czernin's document to prove that Adele did not bequeath the Klimt paintings tp the Austrian museum. Her will merely requested that her husband donate the paintings on his death. This was merely a request not a bequest, before Fredreick not Adele was the legal owner of the art. The Austrian authorities knowingly lied when they claimed otherwise. Furthermore, Frederick's 1946 will specifically bequeathed the art work to his nephews and nieces. And Schoenberg also pointed out that Adele would hardly have wanted her portrait to be handed over to the same Nazi Austria that stole it from her husband in 1938 when she made her request before her death in 1925.
Hitler inspects a 1939 exhibition of 'approved' German art (i.e. no modern influences permitted). It included works stolen from Jewish owners.
Nazi Austrian Documents such as this one recording possessions to be confiscated from the Steiner family exposed ther complicity of the Austrian goverenment in covering up looted artworks.
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Initially Maria Altmann was willing to let the Austrian museum keep "Woman in Gold" in return for admitting they had knowingly accepted looted art. The Austrian authorities refused. She and Schoenberg then argued their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, although here he had to argue against the George W. Bush administration which supported the Austrians. Here, as the movie succinctly shows, Schoenberg astutely used the 1976 U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This had an "appropriation exception". He and Maria argued that since Austria traded commercially with the U.S., it was obligated by the FSIA it was legally liable to claims of property seized in violation of international law. So the Austrian government could be sued. The Supreme Court agreed.
The movie is also accurate in its depiction of the final act of the drama. The Austrian government then offered to submit Maria's claim to arbitration. She agreed and won. After Woman in Gold (or "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I " to revert to its proper title - was handed over to Maria, she sold it to the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, on condition that it be displayed at the Neue Gallery in New York). In 2005 an American Court awarded Altmann and her surviving relatives US$ 21.8 million from the Swiss Banks Fund. The Court found that a Swiss bank, appointed by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer as the trustee of his sugar refinery business in 1938, had defrauded the Bloch-Bauer estate by giving the business to a Nazi industrialist the next year. |
Woman in Gold's depiction of Vienna's treatment of Jews in 1939
One controversial aspect of Woman in Gold is the movie's depiction of Jews being humiliated, harassed, beaten and arrested in Vienna in 1938 following the Anschluss, in which Hitler incorporated German-speaking Austria into the Third Reich. For decades after the war Austrian governments have tried to minimise their country's participation and acquiescence in Nazi war crimes. Austrian officials concealed the extent to which Austrians willingly joined the Nazi party and their willingness to treat Jews as racial enemies, while appropriating their property and possessions.
One controversial aspect of Woman in Gold is the movie's depiction of Jews being humiliated, harassed, beaten and arrested in Vienna in 1938 following the Anschluss, in which Hitler incorporated German-speaking Austria into the Third Reich. For decades after the war Austrian governments have tried to minimise their country's participation and acquiescence in Nazi war crimes. Austrian officials concealed the extent to which Austrians willingly joined the Nazi party and their willingness to treat Jews as racial enemies, while appropriating their property and possessions.
Austrian Nazis stop Jews entering University of Vienna.
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Austrian girls greeting German troops in Salzburg, 1938.
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Jewish men and women being forced to scrub streets.
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Yet the movie has been criticised for being unfair to Vienna, Austrians and even the Nazis. Some reviews have argued that Austrians, especially their art bureaucrats, are portrayed as cold-hearted, deceitful and obstructive. A surprising number of comments claim that the Austrians were the "first victims" of Nazi aggression with the Anschluss of 1938 and that the acts of anti-semitism shown in Woman in Gold were carried out by the Germans, not Austrians. The documentary evidence, including countless images, proves such claims to be nonsense. The German troops were greeted rapturously by crowds. Furthermore. mistreatment, harassment and persecution of Jews was carried out by Austrian Nazis and civilians, with the approval of Austrian authorities.
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