Maria Altmann

Maria Altmann lost her husband in 1994 and on February 7, 2011 she died at her Cheviot Hills home.

Her journey in re-claiming her family belongings found place in three documentaries namely,’ The Rape of Europa’ (2006), ‘Stealing Klimt’ (2007) and ‘Adele's Wish’ (2008); and in Anne-Marie O'Connor’s book ‘The Lady in Gold, the Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer’.

A biographical film ‘Woman in Gold’ (2015) was made on her where Tatiana Maslany and Helen Mirren portrayed her younger and older versions respectively. The film was a commercial success.

Maria Altmann was born Maria Victoria Bloch on February 18, 1916 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary in the wealthy Jewish family of Gustav Bloch and Marie Therese. In 1917, the family changed their name to Bloch-Bauer.

Her uncle, Czech sugar magnate, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, and his wife, Adele, were closely associated with the circle of artists of Vienna Succession movement that Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt aided in establishing in 1897.

Altmann remembered her aunt, Adele’s grand house that was embellished with tapestries, pictures, fine porcelain collection and stylish furniture. Her aunt was a great patron of arts and also posed as model in some of the brilliant artworks of Klimt.

Adele would often play host in the salon of her palatial house in Elisabethstrasse that would be graced by renowned artistic, political and social figures of the day, including Klimt.

Among Adele’s guests was the Austrian painter, composer and music theorist Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg, one of the prominent figures of the Second Viennese School. US attorney and genealogist E Randol Schoenberg who took up Altmann’s case is the grandson of the composer.

After Altmann settled in California, Bernhard sent her a cashmere sweater through mail along with a note saying "See what you can do with this". At that time cashmere sweater was not available in the US and as soon as she took it to Kerr's Department Store in Beverly Hills it drew much interest from buyers.

In no time Bernhard's cashmere sweaters became a craze in California as also throughout the US. Altmann eventually emerged as face of the product that encouraged her to launch her own business on apparels. Her clientele included personalities like actor Spencer Tracy’s mother Caroline Brown Tracy.

In 1945, she became a naturalised citizen of the US. Her uncle Ferdinand died that year on November 13. He left his estate to Altmann and two of his other nephews and nieces.

Meanwhile, the five looted paintings of Ferdinand found place in the custody of the Austrian government. Altmann for many years was under the presumption that the Austrian National Gallery has legitimately kept her family-owned Klimt paintings in their possession.

It was Austrian investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin, who was the first journalist to get hold of the records of the Austrian Gallery in Vienna, discovered that Ferdinand had never donated the Klimt artworks to the state museum as claimed otherwise by Austria. He issued a number of articles on the ownership of the five paintings in 1998.