Film School Radio hosted by Mike Kaspar

ANDREW SHEA, director of PORTRAIT OF WALLY

Egon Schiele’s tender picture of his mistress, Walburga (“Wally”) Neuzil, is the pride of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. But for 13 years the painting was locked up in New York, caught in a legal battle between the Austrian museum and the Jewish family from whom the Nazis seized the painting in 1939.

The documentary traces the history of this iconic image – from Schiele’s gesture of affection toward his young lover, to the theft of the painting from Lea Bondi, a Jewish art dealer fleeing Vienna for her life, to the post-war confusion and subterfuge that evoke THE THIRD MAN, to the surprise resurfacing of “Wally” on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in 1997. The 13-year war over “Wally” was more than a dispute over property stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. It was a battle over history and memory. This time, the truth won. Director Andrew Shea talks about his own journey through  the looking glass world of art and commerce.