New Film 'Woman in Gold' Reveals Story Behind Looted Klimt Painting
- March 31, 2015 14:40
A new film details one woman's epic fight for her family's art collection confiscated by the Nazis.
'Woman in Gold' is a historical drama that tells the story of how a recognized masterpiece by Gustav Klimt--the 1907 gold-flecked portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I"--was eventually restituted to the sitter's niece, wrestled away from an Austrian state museum to be sold for $135 million in 2006 through Christie's. Helen Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, a niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer, who sued the Austrian government for the return of the painting, and won. Actor Ryan Reynolds plays her lawyer.
The prized painting now resides at New York's Neue Galerie. Concurrent to the film, opening on April 2 at the museum is "Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold," an intimate exhibition devoted to the close relationship that existed between the artist and one of his key subjects and patrons.