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Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

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Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
ArtistGustav Klimt
Year1907
TypeOil, silver, and gold on canvas
LocationNeue Galerie

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is a painting by Gustav Klimt completed in 1907. According to press reports it was sold for US$135 million to Ronald Lauder for his Neue Galerie in New York City in June 2006, which made it at that time the most expensive painting ever sold.[1] It has been on display at the gallery since July 2006.

The painting

Klimt took three years to complete the painting. It measures 138 x 138 cm and is made of oil and gold on canvas, showing elaborate and complex ornamentation as seen in the Jugendstil style. Klimt was a member of the Vienna Secession, a group of artists that broke away from the traditional way of painting. The picture was painted in Vienna and commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer[2]. As a wealthy industrialist who had made his fortune in the sugar industry, he sponsored the arts and favored and supported Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer became the only model who was painted twice by Klimt when he completed a second picture of her, Adele Bloch-Bauer II, in 1912.

Ownership of the painting

Public poster about the ownership change

Adele Bloch-Bauer, in her will, asked her husband to donate the Klimt paintings to the Austrian State Gallery upon his death.[3] She died in 1925 from meningitis. When the Nazis took over Austria, her widowed husband had to flee to Switzerland. His property, including the Klimt paintings, was confiscated. In his 1945 testament, Bloch-Bauer designated his nephew and nieces, including Maria Altmann, as the inheritors of his estate.[4]

As Bloch-Bauer's pictures had remained in Austria, the government took the position that the testament of Adele Bloch-Bauer had determined that these pictures were to stay there. After a protracted court battle in the United States and in Austria (see Republic of Austria v. Altmann), binding arbitration by the Austrian court established in 2006 that Maria Altmann was the rightful owner of this and four other paintings by Klimt.[5] After the pictures were sent to America, they were on display in Los Angeles in 2006 before the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold to Lauder.

The painting will be a centerpiece in Ronald Lauder’s collection for his Neue Galerie in New York. This collection has for years attempted to recover Jewish-owned art, mostly from Germany and Austria, that had been confiscated or looted by the Nazi government. Lauder worked towards this goal while he was the U.S. ambassador to Austria, as a member of the “World Jewish Restitution Organization", and as a member of a Clinton commission to examine cases of Nazi looting. Lauder’s comment on the acquisition for his Neue Gallerie collection: “This is our Mona Lisa”.[6]

In June 2006 New York's Neue Galerie is reported to have paid $135 million for the fifth looted Klimt portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold for almost $88 million in November 2006 at Christie's.

Film

Maria Altmann's story has been recounted in three documentary films. Adele's Wish by filmmaker Terrence Turner, who is the husband of Altmann's great-niece, was released in 2008. Adele's Wish featured interviews with Altmann, her lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg and leading experts from around the world. Altmann's story was also the subject of the documentary Stealing Klimt, which was released in 2007. That movie also featured interviews with Altmann, Schoenberg, and others who were closely involved with the story.

The piece was also featured in the 2006 documentary The Rape of Europa, which dealt with the massive theft of art in Europe by the Nazi Government during World War II.

See also

References

  1. ^ NY Times report from June 19, 2006
  2. ^ Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was born Ferdinand Bloch, the son of David Bloch (also known as Abraham Bloch), a banker and sugar factory owner, and his wife Marie, née Straschnow. Ferdinand married Adele Bauer, the daughter of Moritz Bauer (director of the Vienna bank Wiener Bankverein) and his wife Jeanette, née Honig. When Ferdinand married Adele, both adopted the surname Bloch-Bauer.
  3. ^ Last Will 1923
  4. ^ Bloch-Bauer 1945 testament
  5. ^ List and Pictures of Klimt Paintings ("Amalie" not part of the five pictures), Photo of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Photo of Klimt
  6. ^ Quote
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