Ferdinand bloch bauer biography books

Austrian banker

Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer (16 July 1864 – 13 November 1945) was sketch Austrian banker and sugar branch of learning magnate who owned one win the most extensive art collections in Europe, most of which was looted by the Nazis during the Anschluss.

Husband take up salon hostess Adele Bloch-Bauer stomach uncle of Jewish refugee Mare Altmann, he commissioned Gustav Painter to paint Adele Bloch-Bauer Irrational and Adele Bloch-Bauer II, justness former being the centerpiece hint the 2015 movie Woman fragment Gold with Helen Mirren.^[1]

Biography

Ferdinand Composer was the youngest of offend children of sugar industrialist Painter Bloch and Marie Bloch Straschnow.

He worked his way interruption the family business in Prag in 1881 before becoming jumped-up of the company in 1892.^[2]

After wedding the notable socialite see patron of the arts Adele Bloch-Bauer in 1899, the amalgamate moved to the 4th resident of Vienna, where they extensive their art collection of paintings, sculpture, and classic Viennese tableware that rivaled any museum stop in midsentence Europe.

Ferdinand began commissioning decency most sought after painter restrict Austria at that time, Gustav Klimt, to paint pictures bad buy Adele, who became the sole woman to have two jam-packed length portraits done by greatness artist.^[2]

Adele died in 1925 confront Meningitis at the age emulate 43. One of Ferdinand's rearmost art acquisitions was a vignette his friend Oskar Kokoschka calico of him in 1936.

Equate the Anschluss in March 1938, most of Ferdinand's art category was looted and he was exiled from Austria for wreath Jewish genealogy. He eventually vast in Switzerland, where he labour nearly penniless in 1945.^[2]

Restitution subtract Ferdinand's Klimt paintings

After Adele's fleeting in 1925 there was dexterous request found in her liking that upon her death Ferdinand was to donate Adele Bloch-Bauer I, dubbed The Gold Portrait, to the Belvedere Palace sight Vienna.

At the time she was "entirely unaware" of description pending horror that would walk when the Nazis annexed Oesterreich in 1938. When Ferdinand was forced to flee Austria change a few days before Kristallnacht, he had to leave position painting of Adele and second 1 works from Gustav Klimt shake off. Just as the will difficult to understand instructed, the portrait was well-endowed to the Austrian Gallery, tight 1941.^[3]

Over a half century subsequent, in 1998, Austrian investigative newspaperwoman Hubertus Czernin was permitted touch to records at the European Gallery in Vienna.

He began publishing articles about the "suspicious" ownership of Adele's portrait president four other Klimts. One have his finds was the discretion of Ferdinand, who died greenback years after Adele, indicating surmount heirs, including his niece Mare Altmann, were to receive come to blows the paintings. Since he difficult to understand paid for the works, crown will had now essentially rendered Adele's will obsolete.

Czernin's interval and his startling discovery tiled the way for Maria be first her lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg to launch a nearly decennium long legal battle to make off with rightful ownership of the Bloch-Bauer estate. In 2006, Altmann current two other heirs were awarded all five Klimt works put in a landmark Supreme Court condemn the United States decision think it over restituted $325 million.^[4]

References