The Face that Launched a Thousand Lawsuits

The Portrait of Wally continues to fascinate me. I did not know much about it until I watched a documentary on the history of the painting some time ago. Like a lot of other viewers, I am hooked on the story and the history that is clearly unfinished. I may be late to the game on really understanding the history of this painting but I have arrived.



Ironically, Portrait of Wally is probably one of the most remembered prisoners of war from the period.  This beautifully haunting painting started as the personal property of Jewish Viennese gallery owner, Lea Bondi, whose gallery and private collection were seized by a Nazi curator after the Anschluss of 1938. Austrian painter Egon Schiele’s boldly sensual paintings were decried as pornographic in his era and, nearly a century after his death. It ignited an art-world war and influenced the moral position of museums on the issue of Nazi plunder.

After the war, with Austria transforming itself from Nazism’s heartland to its “first victim,” the painting passed into the state collections with a deliberately misleading description and an inaccurate attribution to another—conveniently dead—Jewish owner. Wally became a part of Austria's "natural patrimony". Restitution was out of the question. I'm not calling names but Austria seemed to be somewhat of a chameleon, changing colors as it suited their needs when it came to the Nazis.

Bondi eventually recovered her gallery’s holdings, but not Portrait of Wally. Through a somewhat suspicious clerical error, the painting became the property first of the Austrian National Gallery, then of the privately owned Leopold Museum, which loaned the portrait and 150 other Schiele pieces to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1997. After a lot of legal wrestling, and shortly before the portrait was set to be shipped back to Austria, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office seized the painting and launched an investigation into the true ownership of Portrait of Wally, triggering angry protestations from the Leopold, MoMA, and other prominent museums.

Leopold was a doctor with a real passion for art and an obsession for Schiele in particular. Bondi tried everything including offering to trade other works by Schiele in trade. Epic fail. Leopold was not going to part with the painting. He went so far to create a catalog of the chain of possession of Shiele's works and conveniently excluded Bondi from having ever owned Wally.

The film shows a detailed account of how Portrait of Wally changed hands over the decades. It makes a fairly devastating case, via archival evidence, interviews with many of the key players, and an expansive scope that includes restitution laws, whitewashed national histories, and the questionable ethics of art institutions.

You can watch the documentary on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and iTunes. Here's a trailer if you are interested.
http://portraitofwally.com/trailer

So why am I thinking about Wally again today? The painting made news this week. Because of continuing legal tangles, almost none of the $19m settlement has been distributed to the paintings heirs. 

A federal judge in New York has dismissed a claim for compensation by a man who maintained that he played a crucial part in the return of Egon Schiele’s 1912 Portrait of Wally to the heirs of the original Jewish owner. Robert Roistacher, the boyfriend of one of the heirs, sought $2.75m, saying his effort to contact the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office led to the painting’s seizure by authorities and the eventual $19m settlement for the estate.  

Her creator died in 1918 but everyone still wants a piece of Wally.

By: Renee Bangerter