ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)

“Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” 1907. Oil, silver and gold on canvas.

This portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy Jewish society woman and hostess of a renowned Viennese salon, was commissioned by her husband, Ferdinand. The painting, also called “Woman in Gold,” was stolen by the Nazis in 1941 and displayed at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in Vienna. In 2006, after eight years of litigation by the Bloch-Bauer heirs, led by Los Angeles attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, the painting was returned to the family.