![]() One Berta Zuckerkandl, for example, was of slightly lower social stature but was known as ‘the puppeteer of the Viennese cultural scene’ for all the connections she made, including introducing Klimt to Auguste Rodin the Secession was apparently conceived over conversations in her living room. Like others depicted in the Neue Galerie exhibition, she belonged to a largely Jewish bourgeoisie – whose women wielded considerable social and intellectual power through hosting salons. In at least one area of her life, she very much was. In his paintings, Bloch-Bauer always appears sovereign, grand, even exalted. Critics and art historians over the decades have dubbed Klimt art’s “ Frauenversteher” – “understander of women,” and many speculated that Adele and Klimt had an ongoing affair. Gustav Klimt’s women exuded not only a profound eroticism, but also strength and confidence. She always wore a slinky white dress and used a long, gold cigarette holder.” I remember her as extremely elegant, tall, dark and thin. It was an arranged marriage but she was childless, after two miscarriages and the death of a baby. ![]() Altmann, who died in 2011, remembered her aunt as a “rather cold, intellectual woman who was very politically aware and became a socialist. Despite privilege, life hadn’t always been kind to her. ![]() Here, Bloch-Bauer is very much the grande dame, but her eyes reveal a more mature melancholy. “What excites me about this image is the renewal through the power of colour. “With Adele Bloch-Bauer IIfive years later, he does something completely diffferent, an enormous stylistic evolution is clear.” The painting shows the raven-haired Adele in a wide-brimmed black hat standing majestically, frontally facing the viewer the background a tableau of brightly colored patterned wallpaper. The later painting is a dramatic departure: “How could Klimt have evolved from the first painting?” asks Natter. (Both became Bloch-Bauers their siblings married each other, too, making for two couples with the same hyphenated last name.) The family were avid art patrons, not only collecting but also commissioning paintings – and the maverick, kaftan-clad Gustav Klimt was one of their favorite artists. Ferdinand adored the young woman, enough to make her last name part of his own. The daughter of a bank and railway director, she led a privileged, cultured childhood at 19, she married Ferdinand Bloch, a sugar magnate 17 years her senior. Over the past century, many viewers have asked: who was Adele Bloch-Bauer?īloch-Bauer was born Adele Bauer in Vienna in 1881. ![]() The painting later became an icon of justice – the 2015 film Woman in Gold is the Hollywood version of the tale of the painting’s confiscation from the Jewish Bloch-Bauer family during World War Two and the long but ultimately successful struggle for restitution by Bloch-Bauer’s niece Maria Altmann. In postwar Vienna her image became a symbol of Austrian culture – Adele Bloch-Bauer I was long called ‘the Austrian Mona Lisa’. ![]()
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