Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer II' on view at the Museum of Modern Art

NEW YORK, NY.- Gustav Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer II, one of two formal portraits that the artist made of Adele Bloch-Bauer, an important patron of the artist, is on view at The Museum of Modern Art beginning today (September 5) as a special long-term loan from a private collection.

Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy industrialist in Vienna, where Klimt lived and worked. Completed in 1912, the composition emphasizes Bloch-Bauer's social station within Vienna's cultural elite. Her towering figure, in opulent dress, is set against a jewel-toned backdrop of nearly abstract patterned blocks that suggest a richly decorated domestic interior.

In 1938, the Nazis took possession of this portrait along with other works of art in the Bloch-Bauer family's collection (including Adele Bloch-Bauer I, now in the collection of the Neue Galerie, New York). In 2006, after years of legal negotiations, the works were returned to the Bloch-Bauer heirs and subsequently sold to other collections.

Adele Bloch-Bauer II is on view in the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. galleries for painting and sculpture. It is joined by a selection of works from the Museum's collection, including paintings, drawings, and objects by Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and others.