Klimt: Art Theft, Adoration, and Adele Bloch-Bauer
By Sofia Melendez
Models: Lucy Hwang, Lissie Hill; HMUA: Jaycee Jamison; Photographer: Kim Pagtama; Stylist: Catherine Hermansen
When one thinks of “art nouveau”, one artist is sure to come to mind: Gustav Klimt. His elaborate, shimmering, patterned portraits of beautiful women embody the era and what it stood for. One of his paintings, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, has captivated fine art aficionados for over 100 years, but not just because it is visually stunning. It was the center of one of the most infamous art plunderings in history.
Klimt was born in 1862 in Baumgarten, Vienna, Austria. He attended the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts as a young man via a prestigious full scholarship, studying traditional architecture. However, painting was always his forte; his brother accompanied him painting murals throughout town. His works tended to involve underlying themes of erotica and sexuality as well as dark symbolism (when looking back these can be described as “leitmotifs” in his career). Many of his professional patrons were appalled by his final products due to heavy censorship and classical art values of the time. After becoming tired of constantly being turned down jobs, he and other like-minded artists founded the Viennese Sezession in 1897, a collective where they were able to utilize more graphic & innovative themes in their art.
Klimt’s most recognizable feature in his art is the use of gold leaf. On a trip to the Basilica San-Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, he viewed the Byzantine mosaics on the apse of the building, which left him stunned. He decided to take this element and incorporate it into his works, starting with Pallas Athene in 1898. However, one of the most recognizable gilded portraits he did was the work I will focus on here, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907).
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
Gustav Klimt
1907
Oil, silver, & gold on canvas
Adele Bloch-Bauer was a wealthy socialite in Vienna who owned a salon with esteemed patrons such as composer Gustav Mahler. As an artist, Klimt understood the power of women throughout history. He saw Bloch-Bauer, who he first worked with while painting this portrait, as his muse; a strong, powerful “femme fatale”, an archetype that all his works have in common. Her career as a philanthropist and business owner captivated him, leading Adele to be the only subject the painter painted more than once in his career (3 times overall). In addition to this fascination was lust - rumors circulated over the years that Klimt daydreamed of a relationship with Adele, despite her being married. Her husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a sugar manufacturer, commissioned the work in honor of her beauty.
In the portrait, we see Adele staring at the viewer, seducing them in the process. Adele enshrined in gold as the background appears to be engulfing her body. Gold represents wealth power, and status, even in the modern day. This could signify her uncomfortableness with being a well-regarded figure in Viennese society, or a “bird in a golden cage” (Néret 60). Her hair is tidily tied up in a “Gibson-girl” style, which was extremely trendy in the Edwardian era, in which this piece was completed. Her dress has Egyptian-inspired eye symbols on it, representing the eyes of society that were always watching her every move. Within the background lie a variety of swirls, squares, rectangles, and more figures, which something Klimt features in several of his works. He attributes this to the “horror vacui” complex introduced by Aristotle, in which materials tend to fill blank space in an unfilled void. It is also inspired his life-long love Emile Flöge’s fashion designs.
In 1938, World War II was ravaging the world. The Nazi Party was attempting to fit society into its cruelly strait-laced mold. In the process, they plundered hundreds of paintings that didn’t meet their aesthetic standards, including Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer. It had belonged to Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer previously, who’s family’s fortune and heirlooms were stolen as well, including an engagement ring belonging to his niece, Maria Altmann. She would soon gain her uncle’s inheritance, left to her in his will, which included two portraits of her aunt by Klimt. After successfully fleeing from the Nazi’s, Maria arrived in Los Angeles. In 1998, the Austrian government ordered that all Nazi-seized paintings be returned to their rightful owners. In response, Altmann sparked a legal battle rallying for the rights of all her family’s property. After a long fight, the “Woman in Gold” was returned to a Bloch-Bauer heir. Unbeknownst to Gustav Klimt at the time of painting the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, his piece would become a part of one of the most notorious events in the history of the art world.