Adele Block Bauer and 'Woman in Gold'

I've just watched the film Woman In Gold on BBC - about the portrait of Adele Block-Bauer by Gustav Klimt - and had to keep restraining myself from reaching for my iPhone to check what the outcome was. The nuisance of a memory which remembers some facts but not all of them!

Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer (the so-called "Woman in Gold") 1907
by Gustav Klimt
oil, silver and gold on canvas, 140 × 140 cm (55.1 × 55.1 in)
Current Location: Neue Galerie New York

So for those who were equally intrigued here's what I found.

You can see the film, made in 2015, on BBC2 channel on iPlayer (for the next 29 days)

Timeline

• painted in 1907 - and commissioned by Ferdinand Block-Bauer 
• 1925 - Adele Bloch-Bauer died suddenly of meningitis, in Vienna on January 24
• 1928 - lent for an exhibition at the Vienna Secession in 1928 to mark the tenth anniversary of Klimt's death
• 1934 - displayed in London as part of the Austria in London exhibition
• 1937 - lent for display at the Paris Exposition
• between 1938 and 1941: nationalised by the German/Austrian State
• December 1941 - Führer transferred the paintings Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and Apfelbaum I to the Galerie Belvedere (now Österreichische Galerie Belvedere)
• 1945 - Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer (Adele's husband) died on 13 November 
• 2006: restituted to Maria Altmann, the niece of the Bloch-Bauers by Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
• purchased by Ronald Lauder ($135 million) from Maria Altmann
• transferred to Neue Galerie in New York City from Ronald Lauder

Related Websites

About the portrait

• Portrait of Adele Bock-Bauer I | Wikipedia - about the painting by Gustav Klimt
• Neue Galerie New York (Museum for German and Austrian Art) 1048 Fifth Avenue (located across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold - about the exhibition after the acquisition - includes pictures of the real Adele Block-Bauer and 
• Austrian Masterworks from the Neue Galerie New York September 22, 2016-September 25, 2017 - an exhibition that celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Neue Galerie’s founding - which includes both portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907 and 1912)
• Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer Paintings to Be Reunited at Neue Galerie | Artnet News (June 2016) - referencing the exhibition listed above

About the key persona

• Adele Block-Bauer (1881-1925) | Jewish Women's Archive - this provides the story in a nutshell (see below). Adele was apparently painted a number of times by Klimt - including Judith and the Head of Holofernes

On January 24, 1925 Bloch-Bauer died suddenly of meningitis, in Vienna. After her death, the “Klimt Hall” was turned into a “memorial room” for her. In her will she asked her husband to donate Klimt’s paintings to the Austrian Gallery after his death. In 1938, following the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, the paintings were aryanized. Ferdinand fled to Czechoslovakia and later continued to Zurich, where he died shortly after the end of the war. He is buried beside his wife in Vienna. His last request to recover the Klimt paintings and other artworks from their exquisite collection was not fulfilled in his lifetime. Maria Altmann, Adele’s California-based niece and the family heir, sued the Republic of Austria, demanding that the Klimt paintings be returned to her.

• BBC - The mysterious muse of Gustav Klimt 
• Biography - Who Was Maria Altmann? The Real Story Behind 'Woman in Gold'
• Maria Altmann nee Bloch (1916-2011) | Wikipedia - niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer who fled to the USA in 1938 following the Anschluss; details the background to the legal case. She died on died on February 7, 2011.
• E. Randol "Randy" Schoenberg - the lawyer who helped Maria Altman reclaim the Klimts. Grandson of  Arnold Schoenberg the composer. His grandmother was Maria Altman's best friend. Besides continuing to work as a lawyer, he also teaches a course on  teaches a course on Art and Cultural Property Law. President of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust from 2005 to 2015. This is his Facebook Page and his Twitter account - looks like he's an interesting lawyer!
• Hubertus Czernin (1956-2006)| Wikipedia - the man who proved that the claim of the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna was false - which in turn led to the passage of Austria's Art Restitution Law. To my mind he's not given adequate credit in the film for the role he played. He died on 10 June 2006
• Ronald Lauder | Wikipedia - heir to the Estée Lauder Companies, President of the World Jewish Congress and founder of the Neue Galerie New York

About the film

• The womaningoldmovie website
• Woman in Gold (film) | Wikipedia
• IMDb | Woman in Gold
• The Telegraph | Woman in Gold review: 'distinctly ordinary' - a rather odd review. 

Articles about the Portrait and the Legal Case and subsequent Auction

• New York Times - The Story Behind ‘Woman in Gold’: Nazi Art Thieves and One Painting’s Return - summarises what happened in this case and outlines other cases involving art restitution and the associated difficulties / failure to deliver
• Christies - The Woman in Gold - relates the story of the restitution and comments on the film.
• Tablet - Woman in Gold and an old Toyota - one of the more interesting articles