She settled in California in 1942 and became an American citizen in 1945. Here are some elements of the true story that weren’t in the film. Maria Altmann was an Austrian-American Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi occupied Austria and took refuge in America where she later became a naturalized citizen. In 1937 she married Fritz Altmann, an opera singer, and the couple lived in Berlin. They were never displayed to the public and were eventually destroyed by retreating Nazi troops in 1945. The portrait was commissioned by the sitters husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a Jewish banker and sugar producer. The painting was inherited by Ferdinand’s niece, Maria Altmann, in 2006, following eight years of legal dispute against the Republic of Austria. The plaintiff Maria Altmann was born in Austria in 1916. She settled in California in 1942 and became an American citizen in 1945. They escaped to Liverpool via the Netherlands in 1938. Fritz and Maria’s escape took place on October 21-22, 1938. More: Angelina Jolie Disputes That the Casting Call for Her Film Was ‘Exploitative’. In 1937, Maria married Fredrick ("Fritz") Altmann. Copyright © 2020 SheKnows Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Altmann had just returned from her Paris honeymoon with her husband, Fritz. Just prior to boarding the plane during their escape, did officials come looking for two passengers from Vienna? Originally posted March 2015. The second portrait, painted five years later, shows a more matronly Adele, body covered up to her neck, and her luscious black hair is concealed beneath a hat, suggesting that any hot, passionate feelings the artist may have had for Adele had likely fizzled out. Gustav Klimt was known for being a playboy, taking many, many lovers. The movie, starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, begins with the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938. (AP Photo/Nam Huh) Altmann, then living in Los Angeles, never thought she would actually gain control of her native country's most prized artistic possession. Not long after their Paris honeymoon, the 1938 Anschluss incorporated Austria into Nazi Germany. For present purposes I assume the following: 1. Maria Altman’s real-life lawyer, E. Randol Shoenberg (Ryan Reynolds in the film), recently told the Times of Israel that viewing the painting in person is a totally different experience than looking at a print. "I didn't lose my grandparents' generation," she says, unlike the character she plays in Woman in Gold, Maria Altmann, who lost much of her family to the Holocaust. She is a niece, and the sole surviving named heir, of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who died in Zurich, Switzerland, on November 13, 1945. US attorney and genealogist E Randol Schoenberg who took up Altmann’s case is the grandson of the composer. Her inspirational life story unfolds her successful quest in reclaiming five of her family-owned paintings from government of Austria that were seized by the Nazis during Second World War. Ferdinand died in Switzerland in November 1945. His family was Jewish. Ferdinand died in Switzerland in November 1945. Her aunt was a great patron of arts and also posed as model in some of the brilliant artworks of Klimt. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/arts/design/09altmann.html Getting to know such fact, Altmann, by that time 82, resolved to get the paintings back to her family. Documentaries. Her clientele included personalities like actor Spencer Tracy’s mother Caroline Brown Tracy. Maria Altmann and husband Fredrick "Fritz" Altmann (top) and in the Woman in Gold movie (bottom). MARIA V. ALTMANN ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [June 7, 2004] Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Souter joins, concurring. 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