“Rape of Europa,” the Movie, Premieres

Coinciding with the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the film adaptation of Lynn Nicholas‘ groundbreaking book about Nazi art loot, The Rape of Europa (above), will have its commercial premiere this Friday in New York. (Subsequent openings around the country are listed at the above link.) It has been screened since last December at film festivals and art museums.
The film, narrated by Joan Allen, “begins and ends with the story of artist Gustav Klimt‘s famed Gold Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938 and now the most expensive painting ever sold” (or maybe not). But neither Klimt nor Maria Altmann (the successful claimant) make an appearance in the index of my 1995 paperback of Nicholas’ exposé, so the film and/or Nicholas must have updated to take this celebrated saga into account.
Meanwhile, the pricey “Gold Portrait,” Adele Bloch-Bauer I, will again be congenially surrounded by Klimts beginning Oct. 18, when the Neue Galerie, New York, opens “Gustav Klimt: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections.”
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start my own Jewish New Year celebration a few hours early. See you Monday (unless I decide to pop in on you during the weekend).