239. The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by: Michael Koss
Author: Anne-Marie O’Connor
Genre: Non Fiction, Foreign, History, Art, Biography
370 pages, published February 7, 2012
Reading Format: Book
Summary
The Lady in Gold tells the true story behind Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, known as the Austrian Mona Lisa. The first part of the book delves into the history of Klimt, a wholly original, headstrong and intriguing figure, and of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a beautiful, free thinking, seductive Viennese woman from a prominent Jewish family who may have been the mistress of Klimt. After Adele’s death, the Nazi’s marched into Austria and began a wholesale looting of artwork belonging to the country’s Jewish citizens. One of the paintings they seized was “The Woman in Gold,” Klimt’s portrait of Adele. Fifty years later, Adele’s niece Maria engaged Randol Schoenberg, a young lawyer related to a friend of hers to engage in an against all odds battle to recover the painting from the Austrian government. The second part of the book recounts the legal battle which led to justice finally being served.
Quotes
“Happy he who forgets what cannot be changed.”
“Any nonsense can attain importance by virtue of being believed by millions of people,” Einstein.
“to every age its art; to art its freedom.”
“Austrians were allowed to paper over their pasts and portray themselves as unwilling participants. They felt sorry for themselves, and for the proud family names sullied with the taint of Nazi collaboration. The Cold War began in earnest, and the West was eager to hang on to Austria. A 1948 amnesty brought a premature end to Austrian de-Nazification. Austrians began to deny their jubilant welcome of Hitler and to claim that Austria had been “occupied” by Germany.”
My Take
A few years ago, I watched the film version of The Lady in Gold (renamed The Woman in Gold) starring Helen Mirren as Maria and Ryan Reynolds as Randy Schoenberg. It was a very well done, informative and entertaining movie that changed a few of the historical facts, but was otherwise true to the spirit of this fascinating story. The book version goes several layers deeper and delivers an intriguing read. As a side note, when I got to the part in the book when Randy Schoenberg (the lawyer played by Ryan Reynolds in the movie), I learned that he was at USC Law School a year before I was. Sure enough, I googled an image of him and discovered that I remembered him from several classes that we both took. Later in the book, it is revealed that Randy ended up with close to $100 million in connection with the recovery of The Lady in Gold painting. Good for him! Undoubtedly, the most successful of my USC Law School classmates.
