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Lot 283:
Description
Keywords: 20th Century, Abstract Composition, Muted Color Palette, Thought-Provoking Imagery, Modern Art, Emotional Expression, Unique Style, Symbolic Elements, Avant-Garde, Figurative Abstraction
Felix Nussbaum, Surrealist school of the 20th century. Mixed media painting on paper, mounted on canvas housed in an ornate wooden frame. "Signed" Nussbaum on Verso. There is no apparent signature on the Front.
Bio: The German painter Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabruck in 1904. In 1922, he studied at the Hamburg State School of Applied Arts. In 1923, he attended the private Lewin-Funcke-School in Berlin. In 1924-25, he was a student of the Berlin School of Fine and Applied Arts and was a master’s student of Hans Meid in 1928-29.
With the National Socialists taking over power in 1933, the political and cultural atmosphere in Germany underwent drastic changes. His Berlin studio was set on fire by the Nazis because of his Jewish belief, with some 150 works falling victim to the flames. His scholarship at the Villa Massimo was canceled, and Nussbaum had to leave suddenly. His paintings were sent to him in Alassio. The couple lived in Brussels as of 1937. As German troops marched into Belgium in 1940, Nussbaum was arrested as a hostile foreigner and had to go to a detention camp in Saint-Cyprien, from where he managed to escape. He returned to Brussels.
Felix Nussbaum hid his paintings with two friends in 1942. He and his wife hid in the apartment of the Belgian sculptor Dolf Ledel. Despite all miseries, Nussbaum continued working – because of the smell of turpentine, which could reveal his hiding place, he worked in the basement of the house of an art dealer friend. Nussbaum and his wife were arrested on June 20, 1944, and deported to Auschwitz, where he died on July 31, 1944. Felix Nussbaum was one of the main representatives of New Objectivity (a return to realism and a revolt against expressionism). His hometown opened the Felix-Nussbaum-House in 1998, where 170 works, some two-thirds of his oeuvre, are shown.
Measurement: Art: 32 3/4 x 24 3/4 in. (83.2 x 62.9 cm.), Frame: 39 x 31 in. (99.1 x 78.7 cm.)
Category: 10
Condition: No major issues noted. Wear commensurate with age.
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