The Lady in Gold: Special Lecture and Book Signing

The Tale of a Masterpiece: Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer & the Stolen Portrait That Shook The Art World

Author Anne-Marie O’Connor speaks in conjunction with the publication of her new book, The Lady in Gold, a suspenseful tale of the battle to recover a famous painting created in turn-of-the-century Vienna and stolen by the Nazis during World War II. The publication of The Lady in Gold is timely, as Austria has declared 2012 to be “the year of Gustav Klimt around the world,” celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the painter’s birth. Through the forgotten stories of Viennese art patrons, O’Connor narrates the circumstances of recovering Klimt’s sensational Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the “Austrian Mona Lisa," which was finally returned sixty years after it was stolen following an eight-year legal battle. A dozen of Klimt’s paintings have been returned by Austrian museums, and O’Connor follows the wake of a decade-long restitution of works stolen by the Nazis from the families of Jewish intellectuals. The Lady in Gold is a captivating look at a painting, the subject of that painting, and the painter, whose influence on modernism in turn-of-the-century Vienna continues to be deeply felt today.

Bing Theater l Free, tickets required | Tickets 323 857-6010 or reserve online | Buy the Book