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stevienlcf's review against another edition
4.0
I suspect that most people are familiar with Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" the modernist painting of the heavy-lidded dark-haired woman surrounded by a shimmering mosaic of gold. I picked up the book expecting nothing more than a further elaboration on the subject's heirs successful international legal battle to recover the artwork. Yet, the title of the book does not do justice to the scope of O'Connor's exhaustively researched and detailed work.
O'Connor opens the book with alternating chapters detailing Klimt and Bloch-Bauer's backgrounds. Klimt was born into an impoverished family, but he had talent and a powerful sexual magnetism that attracted women at the highest levels of Viennese society (and led to a number of illegitimate children). Bloch-Bauer married a prominent industrialist and, childless, she established a glittering salon of Viennese intellectuals and artists. Although Klimt was viewed as a heretic in his time, he received many portrait commissions from progressive and wealthy Austrian Jews. Bloch-Bauer and Klimt had a close association for many years (and perhaps an affair), and she was the subject of the famous painting that Austrian's view as their "Mona Lisa."
The second part of the book, which this reader found to be the most successful, picks up in 1937 after the deaths of Klimt in 1918 and Bloch-Bauer in 1925. O'Connor captures the fear of the Jewish Viennese aristocracy against the rise of anti-semitism. The book is gripping in drama as Jewish families are destroyed and their businesses, homes, and art collections are confiscated by Nazis. The portrait, stripped of its subject's Jewish identity by being renamed "Dame in Gold," was stored in a former monastery during the war and was taken to the Belvedere which enhanced its collection through the Nazi's "uncommonly prolific acquisition policy."
The third part of the book chronicles repetent Viennese, such as Hubertus Czernin, a Viennese investigative journalist, who could not recover lives lost but could report on Autria's complicity in the Holocaust and led the cry to return stolen artwork to its murdered and wronged Jewish citizens. It also details the legal battles of Bloch-Bauer's neice, Maria, who was able to gain her husband's release from Dachua in exchange for family assets. Maria and her husband escaped Vienna and, with the help of a young, inexperienced lawyer who took the case on a contigency basis, successfully sued Austria in U.S. courts for the return of her aunt's portrait.
O'Connor presents an enormous amount of information, some of which is peripheral to her subject, but it is all fascinating and makes for a compelling tale of art and the Holocaust.
O'Connor opens the book with alternating chapters detailing Klimt and Bloch-Bauer's backgrounds. Klimt was born into an impoverished family, but he had talent and a powerful sexual magnetism that attracted women at the highest levels of Viennese society (and led to a number of illegitimate children). Bloch-Bauer married a prominent industrialist and, childless, she established a glittering salon of Viennese intellectuals and artists. Although Klimt was viewed as a heretic in his time, he received many portrait commissions from progressive and wealthy Austrian Jews. Bloch-Bauer and Klimt had a close association for many years (and perhaps an affair), and she was the subject of the famous painting that Austrian's view as their "Mona Lisa."
The second part of the book, which this reader found to be the most successful, picks up in 1937 after the deaths of Klimt in 1918 and Bloch-Bauer in 1925. O'Connor captures the fear of the Jewish Viennese aristocracy against the rise of anti-semitism. The book is gripping in drama as Jewish families are destroyed and their businesses, homes, and art collections are confiscated by Nazis. The portrait, stripped of its subject's Jewish identity by being renamed "Dame in Gold," was stored in a former monastery during the war and was taken to the Belvedere which enhanced its collection through the Nazi's "uncommonly prolific acquisition policy."
The third part of the book chronicles repetent Viennese, such as Hubertus Czernin, a Viennese investigative journalist, who could not recover lives lost but could report on Autria's complicity in the Holocaust and led the cry to return stolen artwork to its murdered and wronged Jewish citizens. It also details the legal battles of Bloch-Bauer's neice, Maria, who was able to gain her husband's release from Dachua in exchange for family assets. Maria and her husband escaped Vienna and, with the help of a young, inexperienced lawyer who took the case on a contigency basis, successfully sued Austria in U.S. courts for the return of her aunt's portrait.
O'Connor presents an enormous amount of information, some of which is peripheral to her subject, but it is all fascinating and makes for a compelling tale of art and the Holocaust.
mountain_adventures's review against another edition
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Fascinating and sad story of Klimt's art work and what happened to it during WWII and the current state of the work. Lots of excellent little side roads are added to help fill in potential gaps in your knowledge.
sharonslater's review against another edition
4.0
Extremely ambitious, deeply researched and succesfully achieved. Wonderful read. Didn’t expect to enjoy a “historical” book this much. Nevertheless, maybe there was too little about the actual “Lady in Gold” in the book that was supposedly named after her. I did deepen my understanding of WWII times, and got to enjoy individual background stories.
rc_cola's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic book! This story is very close to my heart and the author does a wonderful job, not only in her extensive research, but also in crafting the vivid image of Vienna and it's amazing culture, art, and tragedy.
bridgetkerr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
altlovesbooks's review against another edition
2.0
I'm unsatisfied, and I feel like the book title and premise misrepresented what it ended up being about. The beginning was promising, and I really enjoyed the picture the author painted (heh heh) of pre-war Vienna and the sorts of people it attracted. The depictions of Adele, Klimt, and all their associated friends and flings were interesting. From there, though, the book rushed its way to World War II and then spun its wheels there while it tried to tell short little stories of anyone who had even a tenuous connection to the painting or Adele or Klimt, and their experiences with World War II. It felt like half the book was stuck here, and I ended up getting really fatigued at reading Nazi story after Nazi story. It also felt like the painting, what I thought was the subject of the book, was mentioned very little during this section.
The book then sped up again, speeding us along to what I was expecting more of -- the actual fight for the painting. Or so I thought, anyway, the legal battle ended up spanning only a small handful of chapters (and the chapters in this book are only a page or two), and then it was over and Maria had won her fight. The rest of the book was Vienna's complaints about the paintings being purchased.
I like a good non-fiction book about random historical topics, but this one didn't feel like it fit the bill for me. It lacked direction and cohesion, because while the people stories were for the most part interesting, I never had a clear idea of where one thought was leading to the next. It also lacked substance about the actual painting beyond what was told pre-WWII, which is a letdown considering the book title implied more. This one missed the mark with me, I think.
The book then sped up again, speeding us along to what I was expecting more of -- the actual fight for the painting. Or so I thought, anyway, the legal battle ended up spanning only a small handful of chapters (and the chapters in this book are only a page or two), and then it was over and Maria had won her fight. The rest of the book was Vienna's complaints about the paintings being purchased.
I like a good non-fiction book about random historical topics, but this one didn't feel like it fit the bill for me. It lacked direction and cohesion, because while the people stories were for the most part interesting, I never had a clear idea of where one thought was leading to the next. It also lacked substance about the actual painting beyond what was told pre-WWII, which is a letdown considering the book title implied more. This one missed the mark with me, I think.
cook_memorial_public_library's review against another edition
5.0
Highly recommended by Cheryle, who comments, "Stolen art, a great mystery in the turn of the century and World War II Vienna. A true tale of suspense.''
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slady%20in%20gold%20O%27Connor__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Slady%20in%20gold%20O%27Connor__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
srash's review against another edition
4.0
Pretty interesting look at a painting that I wasn't especially familiar with and its history, alongside the history of 20th century Vienna. Ends up being a family history of the subject of the painting more than anything else--Adele Bloch-Bauer, a sophisticated and wealthy Viennese Jewish society girl who likely had an affair with Gustav Klimt.
The painting ends up taking a rather winding path through Austrian history after Adele's untimely death in the 1920s. As Adele's family flees Austria after the Anschluss, the Nazis also usurp the painting and attempt to obscure its origins. After the war, Adele's surviving family have very different ideas about what should happen to the portrait, which remains in an Austrian museum, and a lengthy, contentious legal battle erupts between them and Austria over who's the rightful owner as the family itself also begins to disagree.
The painting ends up taking a rather winding path through Austrian history after Adele's untimely death in the 1920s. As Adele's family flees Austria after the Anschluss, the Nazis also usurp the painting and attempt to obscure its origins. After the war, Adele's surviving family have very different ideas about what should happen to the portrait, which remains in an Austrian museum, and a lengthy, contentious legal battle erupts between them and Austria over who's the rightful owner as the family itself also begins to disagree.