Read Online The Lady in Gold The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt Masterpiece Portrait of Adele BlochBauer AnneMarie O'Connor 9781101873120 Books

Product details Paperback 368 pages Publisher Vintage; Reprint edition (March 31, 2015) Language English ISBN-10 9781101873120 ISBN-13 978-1101873120 ASIN 1101873124

The Lady in Gold The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt Masterpiece Portrait of Adele BlochBauer AnneMarie O'Connor 9781101873120 Books Reviews

• From the cosmopolitan salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna to the interwar years when Vienna was a shadow of its former glory to the terrible years of the Anschluss and finally to the courtrooms of the postwar period, this book is an extraordinary masterpiece of history. This is the story of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the lady in gold of the famous Klimt painting.
  
  The story begins close to the present when finally the Klimt painting was handed over by Austria to the family of Adele in 2006. But then backwards in time we go to the late 19th century. To a cosmopolitan Imperial city - Vienna. A glorious Vienna where women of the "second society" (read liberated, secular, wealthy Jews and non-aristocrats) were able to hold salons for the artists and authors who would never have been exposed to the public or gained so much fame otherwise. But it was also frequented by the famous too. Mark Twain stopped by on his travels through Europe and received a warm welcome from the people open to modernity but was also vilified by the establishment. The first female doctor in Vienna visited. The composers Mahler and Strauss frequented the salons. And so did artists, including Klimt. And while we get a lot on the world of this society of the liberated Jews, we also learn a lot about Klimt.
  
  After recreating this world of artistic and intellectual ferment, however, the book turns dark. The Fall of the Habsburg Empire was a catastrophe for Imperial Vienna. No longer was Vienna the center of a multicultural polyglot empire. Now it was only the capital of the rump state of Austria. And vastly reduced in population and glory. The book is part a biography of Klimt. Part a biography of Adele Bloch-Bauer (and her many relations). But it is also a biography of Vienna. And while the interwar years were not great for Vienna, the deepest darkness was still to come during the Anschluss. Now the society of the salons would be broken. And lost forever. The Nazis would attempt to erase the cultural brilliance from history. The names would attempt to be forgotten. The Germanification of Austria would leave no room for Jews or the part they played in making Vienna a capital of modernity.
  
  The Nazi years when the family scattered through Europe, the postwar period when Vienna was occupied by the four main Allies, the end of deNazification in '48 because Vienna was important to the West and was not going to be lost to the Communist Soviets are all discussed and the families that are the core of the book weather the tempests of time. Though not all make it. Some are lost to firing squads. Some to suicide. Some to Concentration Camps. Some made it through the Fascist years but ended up killed by Tito's forces in Yugoslavia (part of the family had huge assets there). And then the story continues in the new world where some of Adele's descendants survived.
  
  But it also continues in a disgusting version of Austria. And the last part of the book discusses the collective amnesia. And how the Austrians now would not let any art leave the country because art was part of the national cultural patrimony. But some lesser works could leave if the owners whose works were stolen would agree to more valuable works staying. This post-war Austria eventually succumbs to something better and so the story ends in the period when the stolen artworks begin to be reclaimed by the original owners's families.
  
  The book is a masterpiece of story telling. The author recreates the world and makes you identify with these historical personages. For anyone who wants to know more about Austrian history, this is a great book to read. For anyone who loves history, this is a great book to read.
• This is a fascinating book. It is not an easy read but is worth your time to persevere. The book is a promise to tell the story of Gustav Klimt and his best known painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, who is a Vienna Jewish socialite. Fast forward 80 plus years and Klimt's painting,"The Lady in Gold" is auctioned at Christie's for the record price of 78.5 million dollars. In the beginning of this book we read about Klimt and Adele, their relationship and the history of the painting. However, the book is primarialy about the city of Vienna, the great wealth and social life of the Jewish intelligentsia. Unfortunately, Hitler had a special interest in the city. Austria was his birthplace, and art was his obsession. At the time of the German occupation Vienna had the largest Jewish population of western Europe. The German soldiers and SS stripped the Jewish people of their wealth, possessions and many of their lives. Much of the book is about the German confication of the art treasures of Austria and finally the effort of the Jews to reclaim their possessions. Although the Bloch-Bauer family was the main group profiled, there were many pre and post war people in the story. There were too many extended family and friends to keep straight. O'Connor obviously did an excellent research job but the story was lacking in organization.
• I want to thank the author for writing this book because it has taught me so much, opened my eyes, and enriched my experience of Klimt's work and of the splendor and loss that was Vienna. I have seen this painting in three very different places. I flew to Vienna just to see it. Then I saw it when it was in Los Angeles. Then once again in New York where I visit it every time I am there.
  
  This book was well written. Had so much new information and made so many meaningful connections for me. When I read about Austria turning the painting over to the heirs, I cried even though I obviously knew the outcome.
  
  So, Thank You Ms. O'Connor from a Secessionist obsessed never quite made it art historian. You gave me a great week of reading.
• An excellent, detailed story of the Nazi invasion on Austria through the lens of its effect on one family - the Viennese Bloch-Bauer family - and the Klimt paintings they owned. "The Lady in Gold," originally known as "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I," was confiscated by the Nazis along with all the other valuables of the Jewish Bloch-Bauer family during the war. What makes this story stand out is that portrait survived the war, was identified by the survivors of the family, and the Austrian government came up with justifications to keep it in Austria as a national symbol.
  
  "The Rape of Europa" provides a summary of Hitler's rapacious desire for art at any cost. There is a brief chapter about "the Lady in Gold," but nothing to the extent provided by this book, which gives a far more detailed background on Klimt, his interaction with the women he painted, and the public reaction to his paintings. More importantly, this book gives a description of Austria's reception to Hitler, which is critical to understanding how the government and the people today view WWII - and why it was so hard for people in danger to leave. There is also a full story on individuals in the Bloch-Bauer family, and their treatment at the hands of steamrolling Nazis and their own countrymen.
  
  The ambiguity the Austrian government feels towards its history is palpable, and the treatment aged Maria Bloch-Bauer received at the hands of the museum and the Austrian government is amazing. A saddening, interesting, and eye-opening story of Austria's role in WWII, and a reminder of the return of not just money, but family possessions confiscated as spoils of war, that have yet to be returned 70 years after the Nazis were "defeated."