Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Chances are that, if there had been no need to see my digestive system
maintenance service on the Upper East Side, we
would have missed the gorgeous Gustav Klimt paintings at the new Neue
Galerie on East 86thy Street, just off 5th Ave, and the $135Million lady
would have been whipped off the wall, destination unknown, while her four
companions were marched off to the gavel at Sotheby’s, to be dissipated to
wherever super- rich men can sit back and feast their eyes on the most
exquisite beauties of this Earth.

All of us have read the story of how the Viennese sugar banker Ferdinand
Bloch-Bauer had engaged the society painter Gustav Klimt the portray his
young wife Adele, on a stunning large golden background, in a gold dress –
more a robe – surrounded by golden coins, curled snakes, and fertility
symbols, Egyptian and Freemason and Freudian. Given the aristocratic
blue-skinned rosy-cheeked red-lipped seductive –eyed subject, the 1907
result was the most exuberant portrait of a woman ever, overwhelming in its
color and ironic in its opulence, sexuality and social commentary. Klimt
had studied the Byzantine mosaic paintings in Ravenna in 1903, seeing the
Empress Theodosia in a bejeweled setting, and translated that into the
small patterns of enchanting context and juxtaposition that characterize
his textiles, backgrounds, indeed his stylized landscapes of masses of
foliage, attenuated birches and Autumnal leaf-fall. Only faces remain real.

Klimt, originator of the Viennese Succession, a revolutionary blip against
Naturalism in Art’s two-millennia path from Symbolism to Realism to
Abstract, officially painted the temperamental and strong-willed Adele
twice, and allegedly also as the biblical Judith (not seen here),
bare–bosomed and seductive. He painted many Viennese society women, all
proud of their portrayals. The Bloch-Bauer family owned five masterpieces
(two of Adele), and when the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938, the occupiers
stole the art. At the end of WWII, it was turned over to the
Oesterreichiche Gallerie Belvedere in Vienna. Adele died young, of
meningitis in 1925, and in her will indicated that the paintings should be
donated to Austria. Ferdinand, who lived in exile to 1945, willed them to
his niece Maria Altmann (b. 1916) and nephews. Maria carried a court fight
for restitution on two continents, until in 2005 the Austrian appointed
arbitrators decided for return of the Klimts to the family. Cosmetics
magnate Ronald Lauder, who as Ambassador to Austria fought for the return,
in June 2006 bought Adele I for the Neue Galerie for $135M, the highest
price paid ever for a painting, and it has been on exhibit there, July 12
to September 18, along with the four others on loan from the family,
scheduled to be subsequently auctioned off.. However, the exhibition was
extended to October 9, so hurry, hurry…

The Neue Galerie, dedicated to early 20th Century German and Austrian art
and design, is a passion of its founders, Ronald Lauder and his associate,
the late Serge Sabarsky, whose gallery on 79th and Madison sponsored German
Expressionist shows for decades . The Klimt show’s admission charge is #15
($10 for seniors and students). The 2nd floor museum of three rooms has one
dedicated to design – fragile and delicate wineglasses, tea service, square
table silver, a four-part flower vase that looks like a filigreed
Zeckendorf Towers, and silver, jewelry in Joseph Cornell-like boxes,
exquisite work of the Secessionist architect Joseph Hoffman (1870-1956),
Otto Prutscher, Dagobert Peche and others (copies are for sale in the
museum shop).

The middle room holds the Klimts, all five unobtrusively protected with
non-reflecting plexiglass. The third room, containing six Klimt sketches
for the Adele I, all nearly headless and concentrating on clothing, also
has his nudes.
Thirteen sketches by Egon Sheele, Klimt’s brilliant student who died at 29,
surviving his wife by a year, in their sadness underscore the exuberance of
the master. Three works on paper by the Viennese Oskar Kokoshka , and six
by Alfred Kubin complete the exhibit. There is also a 3rd Floor of German
art, not seen in our hurry of absorbing the Klimts

The museum is in a converted Vanderbilt mansion, its provenance noticeable
in the bookstore with its open shelf construction, appropriate for another
era.

There is also a ground floor restaurant, Cafe Sabarsky, The savories’
list offers Viennese specialties - Spaetzle, paprika wurstsalat, ham with
trout, white sausage with potato salad, Hungarian goulash. .Salads include
duck/watercress, bean with pistachio, avocado and prosciutto/cantaloupe
combinations, and there are Matje herring and smoked salmon sandwiches. The
piece de resistance is Viennese coffee,mocha with whipped cream (schlag), to be had with desserts, Sachertorte, chocolate and hazelnut cake and chocolate and rum cake, all with schlag... A Rumpelmayer's experience At the bottom of 15 delights we finally found the favorites –
Himbeerschnitte (raspberry tart) and Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, available
only Mon-Fri. All that we were missing was Anton Karas’ zither in the
background. The Neue Galerie (628-6200) is open 11-8, to 9 on Fri, closed
Tue/Wed.
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In tribute to the victims of 9/11/2001, this column offers a thought from
President Andrew Jackson’s Farewell address (1838): “Eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty.”