Biography

Maria Altmann was born on February 18, 1916 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. She was an actress and writer, known for Woman in Gold (2015), Brief von Alex (2013) and Adele's Wish (2008). She was married to Friedrich Altmann. She died on February 7, 2011 in Cheviot Hills, California, USA.

Played by Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold (2015).

After she moved to Los Angeles, her brother-in-law Bernhard Altmann sent her a cashmere sweater, not yet available in the United States, with a note: "See what you can do with this". She sold the sweater to Kerr's Department Store in Beverly Hills. The resulting demand for cashmere enabled her to start her own clothing business. Among her clients was Caroline Brown Tracy, mother of Spencer Tracy. Bernhard Altmann was forced to sign over his Vienna textile plant to the Nazis in 1938 in exchange for the release of his brother. Having immigrated to the United States in 1941, he added cashmere wool fiber to his New York City-based yarn trading company in 1947. He then re-launched his Vienna factory and opened a factory in Texas, undercutting Scottish manufacturers, which had the cashmere wool market cornered at that time.

Waged a seven-year legal battle against the Austrian government to recover five works by Gustav Klimt, commissioned by her uncle, which were seized by the Nazis when Austria was annexed in 1938, including two done of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. She sold "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" (1907) to Ronald Lauder in 2006 for a then-record $135 million. The four other works brought $192.7 million at an auction later that year.