THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2012 by Anne-Marie O’Connor
Portions of this book previously appeared in the Los Angeles
Times Magazine in 2001 and are reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O’Connor, Anne Marie.
The lady in gold : the extraordinary tale of Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer / by Anne-Marie O’Connor.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-95756-6
1. Klimt, Gustav, 1862–1918. Adele Bloch-Bauer I. 2. Bloch-Bauer, Adele, 1881–1925—Portraits. I. Title. ND511.5K55A618 2012 759.36—dc23 2011033578
Front-of-jacket image: Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, 1907. Oil, silver, and gold on canvas. This acquisition made available in part through the generosity of the heirs of the Estates of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer. Neue Galerie New York, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. Photo: Neue Galerie New York / Art Resource, N.Y.
Back-of-jacket photograph of Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1907. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
Jacket design by Jason Booher
Manufactured in the United States of America
v3.1
To William Booth,
Mary Patricia O’Connor,
and
Carolyn Koppel
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Prologue
PART ONE Emancipation
Adele’s Vienna: Poems and Privilege
The King
Emancipated Immigrants
The Wounded Creator
Arranged Marriage
The Secession
Klimt the Seducer
An Innocent Abroad
“I Want to Get Out”
Adele’s “Bohemian Home”
The Empress
“Degenerate Women”
Eyes Wide Shut
The Outsider
The Painted Mosaic
Klimt’s Women
“Hugs from Your Buddha”
The Good Spirit
PART TWO Love and Betrayal
Degenerate Art
“You Are Peace”
Unrequited Love
Marie Viktoria
Maria and Luise
Stubenbastei
The Housepainter from Austria
With or Without You
The Return of the Native
Love Letters from a Bride
Work Makes Freedom
Thunder at Twilight
Decent Honorable People
Gay Marriage
The Orient Express
The Autograph Hunter
Stealing Beauty
The Last of the Bloch-Bauers
Homecoming
Führer
Nazis in the Family
“Above the Mob”
The Viennese Cassandra
Ferdinand in Exile
The Gutmanns
The “Blonde Beast”
Love Letters from a Murderer
Ferdinand’s Legacy
The Uses of Art
Nelly
The Immendorf Castle
The Child in the Chapel
The Castle of the First Reichsmarschall
The Partisans
The Man Without Qualities
The Nero Decree
Restitution
Liberation
Refugee
Provenance
PART THREE Atonement
Historical Amnesia
The Children of Tantalus
The Heirs of History
The Library of Theft
The Search for Provenance
“I Can’t Afford for You to Lose”
How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?
Klimt’s Stolen Women
A Lost Cause Célèbre
Diplomacy
Family History
Supreme Judgment
Arbitration
Ciao Adele
A Friend from Old Vienna
Patrimony
Adele’s Final Destiny
The Burden of History
Art History
Cultural Property
A Reckoning
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
prl.1 The Belvedere Palace. Irina Korshunova, Shutterstock.
p01.1 Adele Bauer at sixteen. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
1.1 Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria. Photo style of Carl Pietzner-Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
1.2 Katharina Schratt. Adele, Atelier.
1.3 Adele Bauer’s sister, Therese. Artist unknown; photo of pastel sketch by Anne-Marie O’Connor.
2.1 Gustav Klimt. Madame d’Ora, Atelier.
3.1 Jeanette Bauer. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
5.1 Ferdinand Bloch. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
5.2 The empress Elisabeth. By Wilhelm Richter.
5.3 Gustav Klimt and fellow artists. Photo by Moritz Nahr.
7.1 The future Alma Mahler. Mahler-Werfel Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.
7.2 Mizzi Zimmermann. Gustav Klimt, Schubert at the Piano, 1899.
8.1 Mark Twain. Charles Scolik, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
9.1 Gustav Klimt. Photo by Ankowicz-Kleehoven.
13.1 Adele Bauer. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
13.2 Klimt’s Judith, 1901.
13.3 Felix Salten. Madame d’Ora, Atelier.
15.1 Danae, by Klimt.
16.1 Klimt, 1912. Photo by Moritz Nahr. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
17.1 Adele in her early forties. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
20.1 Adele’s niece Maria Bloch-Bauer. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
20.2 Fritz Altmann. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
20.3 Maria at a ladies’ lunch. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
22.1 Maria, Ischl, Austria. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
22.2 Maria and Luise Bloch-Bauer, ca. 1925. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
23.1 Maria Bloch-Bauer and her sister, Luise, 1927. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
23.2 Maria with Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
23.3 Maria and Christl, her best friend from childhood until she left Austria. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
23.4 Maria at her debutante ball. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
24.1 Bernhard Altmann. Courtesy Yvonne and Peter Rubstein.
24.2 Maria with friends, Ischl, Austria. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
24.3 Maria, Austrian Alps, ca. 1936. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
26.1 Maria on her wedding day, December 1937. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
26.2 Maria on her honeymoon, Paris Métro, 1938. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
26.3 Newlyweds Maria and Fritz Altmann, St. Moritz, early 1938. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
38.1 Erich Führer. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
40.1 Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt. By Gustav Klimt, 1914–16.
43.1 Baroness Luise Gutmann, with Nelly and Franz. Courtesy Nelly Auersperg.
43.2 Baron Viktor Gutmann. Courtesy Nelly Auersperg.
44.1 Reinhard Heydrich, ca. 1940. Bundesarchiv, Germany.<
br />
44.2 Heydrich ruled as Nazi governor of Czechoslovakia from Ferdinand’s Czech castle. Courtesy Maria Altmann.
45.1 Bruno Schulz. Courtesy Marek W. Podstolski.
47.1 Baldur von Schirach. Bundesarchiv, Germany.
48.1 Young Nelly. Courtesy Nelly Auersperg.
49.1 Schloss Immendorf, 1936. Photo by H. Seering, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
57.1 Secret Nazi bunker, Belvedere Palace, 1943. Photo by Martin Gerlach, Vienna City Archive.
57.2 Luise and Nelly, ca. 1949. Courtesy Nelly Auersperg.
57.3 A depot of stolen art, Ellingen, Germany. The National Archives, College Park, Maryland.
59.1 Belvedere Palace, ravaged by Allied bombings, December 1944. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
60.1 Count Hubertus Czernin. Photo by Heribert Corn.
61.1 Randol Schoenberg. Photo by Volker Corell.
61.2 Arnold Schoenberg. Copyright Arnold Schoenberg Center, Vienna.
79.1 Adele’s ex libris by Art Nouveau master Koloman Moser. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
Prologue
The Belvedere Palace of war hero Prince Eugene seemed the setting of a fairy tale on the winter morning in 2006 when a young Los Angeles attorney, wearing a long black coat and an habitual air of impatience, trudged through its snowy gardens to lay claim to a painting he had spent years fighting for.
The lone man strode briskly along the imperial palace’s frozen pond. Ice clung to the monumental sphinxes standing sentinel along his path, their hair swirling around fiercely beautiful faces, breasts naked between tassels dangling from armor. Their eyes cast a bold gaze, of sated conquest.
The lawyer was Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of a venerated Viennese composer who had fled the rise of Hitler. The return of this ominous heir was anything but welcome. The painting Schoenberg sought was a shimmering gold masterpiece, painted a century earlier, by the artistic heretic Gustav Klimt. It was a portrait of a Viennese society beauty, Adele Bloch-Bauer.
Both artist and model were long dead, but people still enjoyed speculating they had been lovers. Their artistic collaboration produced one of the greatest portraits of the modern age. Austrians regarded the painting as their Mona Lisa.
Schoenberg paused to stamp snow from his boots at the doors of the palace, which now housed the Austrian Gallery, the premier national art museum, though it still bore the name bestowed by Prince Eugene, who called it his Belvedere, or “beautiful view.” From this hill the Turks had laid siege to Vienna in the last great showdown between East and West, and the soaring green Belvedere roof emulated their billowing tents.
In the distance, St. Stephen’s Cathedral rose toward the heavens, reaching for the love of God. Its majestic blackened spires towered over the site of an ancient moat built by Roman emperors over the remains of a prehistoric Celtic settlement.
Here was the primeval heart of Vienna.
Above Schoenberg, stone gods and goddesses gazed down from the parapet of the palace. Cherubs cast mischievous glances, as capricious as love itself. A group of Japanese tourists stood and shivered, waiting for the museum to open. Schoenberg hurried past them.
The Belvedere Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Baroque monument to the victory over the Turks. (Illustration Credit prl.1)
A silver-haired patriarch in a gray overcoat stopped his morning walk and stared: it was that American lawyer from newspapers and television. “Schoenberg!” the Austrian hissed to his wife. They exchanged stony glances. Schoenberg. The man who wanted to take the gold portrait from Austria.
Inside, Schoenberg was greeted with cool circumspection by the director of the Austrian Gallery, Gerbert Frodl. Frodl was a tall man with watchful eyes and a thin smile. Schoenberg was the last person Frodl, or Austria, wanted to see. But Frodl was shrewd enough to realize that it would be best to treat the composer’s grandson with courtesy. Ticking him off would only make things worse.
For years, Austrian officials had stonewalled Schoenberg. Now Frodl was reduced to showing him the way to precious paintings like a museum guide. Frodl quickly handed Schoenberg off to a tight-lipped functionary. She led him to a glass elevator and pushed a button. They rode down in silence. Deep under the museum, the elevator groaned to a halt. Schoenberg followed the administrator down a maze of dark passageways, their footsteps echoing. Schoenberg thought, What is this place?
He knew better than to ask. The answer might not be pretty. Bunkers like this were not built for fairy-tale palaces.
Finally the administrator opened a heavy door to reveal a strange chamber, as immense and fortified as a refuge to wait out the end of the world. The administrator didn’t bother to offer an explanation for this place, whose colossal walls, built during World War II, had been strong enough to withstand aerial bombardment.
Like many things and many people in Austria, the bunker beneath the Belvedere possessed a mysterious pedigree. Museum curators whispered, incredibly, that it was built as a last refuge for Hitler. But there was no official explanation.
The bunker now sheltered the artistic treasures of Middle Europe. Some of the art locked away here had been “collected” by the Nazis—meaning that it had been stolen, appropriated as ransom from families of accomplished Jews, who were humiliated, fleeced, and finally hounded out of Vienna. If they stayed, far worse fates befell them.
Older Austrians wished to forget this unpleasantness. Museum officials, in particular, had no incentive to sort through their institution’s own musty papers and pull out letters from Nazi functionaries proving that this or that painting did not belong on their walls. They disliked being reminded that fellow art historians and mentors—even relatives—had curated art for Hitler. Now, unbelievably, it had come to this: this Schoenberg was going to paw through national treasures like Napoleon.
The administrator led Schoenberg into the shadowy vault. He blinked to adjust his eyes to the dim light. What he saw astounded him. Rack after rack of paintings lined the walls. Centuries of art that had once hung in monasteries, palaces, grand apartments, and country homes.
The administrator walked silently along the rows of gilded frames, then stopped. Here, she said decisively.
Schoenberg lifted the first painting in the rack, and the light caught a shimmering surface. Here was the masterpiece Schoenberg was fighting for. He stared in wonder at Adele’s face, floating in a haze of gold, as pale and sultry as a diva of the silent screen.
For eight years, Schoenberg had argued this painting did not belong to Austria. Most people would have given up long ago. But Schoenberg had a remarkable client, with a stubbornness to match his own. A ninety-year-old retired dress-shop owner, disarmingly charming and as dignified and composed as the carefully cultivated Viennese debutante she had once been. This onetime Vienna belle, Maria Bloch-Bauer Altmann, was the last living link to her aunt Adele, who was the muse, and perhaps much more, of Gustav Klimt.
Maria Altmann had all the will in the world. But she didn’t have much time. Never had a little old Jewish lady in Los Angeles caused Austria so much trouble.
Schoenberg was not the first attorney to hold this contested jewel in his hands. Half a century before, a Nazi lawyer, known for his arrogance and tailored suits, turned the key of the Elisabethstrasse palais of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
Vienna was ruled by a native son, Adolf Hitler. The attorney, Erich Führer, was riding the crest of this triumphant wave. Even his name was serendipitous. Führer was proud of his stern hatchet face, and the long scar on his cheek that advertised his membership in an elite anti-Semitic university fencing fraternity.
Führer was from a “good family.” But when he opened the massive wooden door of the Bloch-Bauer palais, he looked like a thug in a suit. It was a pose he relished, and like Hitler, it was very much in vogue.
The four-story Bloch-Bauer palais was just off the Ringstrasse, or “Ring Street,” the broad avenue built in a circle around the city after 1857, when Vienna began to tear down the massive
walls that had staved off the Turks. Jewish barons like Rothschild and Schey were allowed to build the ceremonial mansions that the Viennese called palais on the empty ring of land where the battlements had stood. The Ringstrasse became the home of a newer elite known as the “second society.”
Now brilliant Jewish families like the Bloch-Bauers were gone. The salon was silent. Curtains were drawn over the long windows overlooking the Schillerplatz and its statue, draped in a garland of golden roses, of the poet Friedrich Schiller, beloved for the Ode to Joy that was his “kiss to the whole world.” Angels gazed down demurely from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts across the square. Once this Elisabethstrasse palais had witnessed the academy’s humiliating rejection of Hitler, when he was a penniless young art student.
Denying Hitler anything in Vienna was inconceivable now.
Führer strode across jewel-toned Persian rugs, until he reached the bedroom of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the late wife of the man who had been forced to flee this mansion. She had died years ago. But there were flowers in a vase on a table, so withered and dry they crumbled at the touch, and a framed photograph of a bearlike man, grinning and embracing a black-and-white kitten.
Klimt.
Whatever did women seen in him?
Führer walked deeper into the shadowy, cold room. Then he spotted his quarry. For a moment, he stood before it and stared. Here was the portrait that had dazzled turn-of-the-century Vienna. A painting with the flourish of Mozart, yet a product of Freud’s emerging age of the psyche. In this painting, Vienna’s glittering past met its fratricidal present.
Now it would meet its future.
Führer knew Klimt’s work was not entirely in keeping with Nazi tastes. Hitler had an aversion to modernists, and Klimt had been a notorious “philo-Semite,” a friend of Jews. Yet his portraits of society ladies were synonymous with Viennese glamour. The fact that the woman in the golden painting was Jewish was inconvenient, but not incurable.
The painting of Adele would be hoisted into a vehicle and driven across town, slowly, to protect the fragile gold leaf. Führer would not deliver the painting to brutal Nazi storm troopers with guns and boots. He would present it to bespectacled curators at the Austrian Gallery, who were advancing their careers under Nazi rule. It was to these tainted aesthetes that Führer would offer the beautiful Adele, like pirates’ booty, or a trophy of war, with a letter that bore the salutation “Heil Hitler!”
The Lady in Gold Page 1