Maria Altmann (February 18, 1916 – February 7, 2011) was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Austria, noted for her ultimately successful legal campaign to reclaim five family-owned paintings by the artist Gustav Klimt, stolen by the Nazis during World War II, from the Government of Austria.
She was born Maria Victoria Bloch, in Vienna. The family name was changed to Bloch-Bauer the following year. She was a niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy Jewish patron of the arts who served as the model for some of Klimt's best-known paintings, including two of those eventually recovered by her niece. After an Austrian researcher questioned the Austrian state's ownership of the paintings in 1998, Maria Altmann experienced some years of fruitless negotiations and efforts to litigate in the Austrian court system, before a 2004 ruling in her favor by the United States Supreme Court opened the door to an Austrian arbitration process. The arbitration panel of three Austrian judges in turn ruled in 2006 that the art must be returned to Altmann and other family heirs. Altmann died on 7 February 2011, shortly before her 95th birthday. Obituaries appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and many other publications internationally.
Read more about Maria Altmann: Background To The Klimt Case, Film, Books
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