Anne-Marie O'Connor is an American journalist and writer who authored ''The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer''. This bestselling story is about the eight-year legal battle by Vienna emigre

Maria Altmann Maria Altmann (née Maria Victoria Bloch, later Bloch-Bauer; February 18, 1916 – February 7, 2011) was an Austrian-American Jewish refugee from Austria, who fled her home country after it was annexed to the Nazi’s Third Reich. She is noted f ...

, represented by Los Angeles attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, to reclaim five

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...

paintings from her native

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. This saga that also inspired a

Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein (, ; born March 19, 1952) is an American film producer and convicted sex offender. In 1979, Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent ...

movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

, ''Woman in Gold'', in which

Helen Mirren Dame Helen Mirren (; born Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov; 26 July 1945) is an English actor. With a career spanning over six decades of Helen Mirren on screen and stage, screen and stage, List of awards and nominations received by Helen Mirre ...

played Maria Altmann. One of the paintings, '' Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer'', sold for a record $135 million in 2006 to

Ronald Lauder Ronald Steven Lauder (born February 26, 1944) is an American businessman and pro-Israel political activist. He and his brother, Leonard Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies, Estée Lauder cosmetics company, founded by their ...

Neue Galerie New York The Neue Galerie New York ( German for "New Gallery") is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Established in 2001, ...

, where the painting is on view.

Life

A longtime journalist in Latin America, O'Connor covered the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador as a Central America bureau chief for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

. She was also a staff writer for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', the Miami Herald, UPI, and the Cox Newspaper chain, and she has written for ''Esquire'', the ''Christian Science Monitor'', and ''The Nation''. She is a speaker on the subject of the

Nazi plunder Nazi plunder () was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the Art theft and looting during World War II, organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, Germany. Jewi ...

of art and restitution.

Selected works

References

External links

Official websiteTwitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:OConnor, Anne-Marie Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women journalists American women writers Vassar College alumni 21st-century American women