"If I perish, don’t let my works die; show them to the public", Felix Nussbaum begged a friend before he was deported to Auschwitz.
Felix Nussbaum painted multiple self-portraits during the Holocaust, giving us a unique artistic insight into the experience of one man, among the millions that were murdered.
Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944) was a German-Jewish surrealist painter.
Nussbaum's paintings, including Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card (1943) and Triumph of Death (1944), explore his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust.
Felix Nussbaum | Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card / Autoritratto con passaporto ebraico, 1943
His work is usually associated with the New Objectivity movement, and was influenced by the works of Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Rousseau and Vincent van Gogh.
He took refuge in Belgium after the Nazi rise to power, but was deported to Auschwitz along with his wife Felka Platek only a few months before the British liberation of Brussels on 3 September 1944.
All this was to change in December 1932 when, while staying in Rome, his Berlin studio was set on fire and many of his paintings were destroyed.
From Italy he and Platek fled to Belgium on a tourist visa in February 1935, settling first in Ostend - hometown of James Ensor, for whom Nussbaum felt admiration - and then later in Brussels.
Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück in 1904 to a wealthy German-Jewish merchant family.
He studied art in Hamburg and Berlin where he met his partner, the artist Felka Platek, in 1924.
Until the rise to power of the Nazi regime, Nussbaum and Platek led a rather bohemian existence in Berlin, Rome and Paris.
Nussbaum's body of work, which only exists because he managed to secrete his paintings with friends, remains one of the most potent documents of this dark period.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s we are confronted with a visual record of an artist in exile, who gradually becomes resigned to the idea of mortality and impending doom.
In 1940 when the German army entered Belgium, Nussbaum was arrested as a Hostile Alien and was interned in St. Cyprien.
He managed to escape and was registered with The Jews Register in Brussels on 20 December 1940.
With the assistance of friends, Nussbaum and Platek hid in Brussels but were caught in 1944 and sent to Auschwitz on July 31st. | Source: © Christie's
Felix Nussbaum | Self-Portrait in the Camp, 1940 | Neue Galerie, New York
Nussbaum painted self-portraits, such as the present work, that offer an eyewitness account of the conditions at an internment camp.
His depiction of the Saint-Cyprien camp in France includes his face obscured in shadow in the foreground, and two men suffering from malnutrition and dysentery in the background.
Nussbaum managed to escape, but was arrested again by the Nazis in August 1944 and was deported to Auschwitz, where he died along with his wife.
Felix Nussbaum | Self-Portrait in the Camp, 1940 | Neue Galerie, New York
Nussbaum dipinse autoritratti, come il presente lavoro, che offrono un resoconto di testimoni oculari delle condizioni in un campo di internamento.
La sua rappresentazione del campo di Saint-Cyprien in Francia include il suo volto oscurato nell'ombra in primo piano e due uomini che soffrono di malnutrizione e dissenteria sullo sfondo.
Nussbaum riuscì a fuggire, ma fu nuovamente arrestato dai nazisti nell'agosto 1944 e deportato ad Auschwitz, dove morì insieme alla moglie.
In the foreground, in the centre of the beige-grey painting: a group of young artists in pale smocks with paintings.
More paintings are being unloaded from a vehicle on the right.
Left: professors dressed in black form a long queue three abreast.
In the background, Max Liebermann stands on a half-crumbling building.
"Se muoio, non muoiano le mie opere; mostrateli al pubblico", cosi l'artista ebreo Felix Nussbaum implorò un amico prima di essere deportato ad Auschwitz.
Felix Nussbaum dipinse numerosi autoritratti durante l'Olocausto, dandoci una visione artistica unica dell'esperienza di un uomo, tra i milioni che furono assassinati.
Felix Nussbaum (Osnabrück, 11 dicembre 1904 - Auschwitz, 9 agosto 1944) è stato un pittore Tedesco di origine Ebraica, vittima dell'Olocausto.
Felix Nussbaum nacque nel 1904 da una famiglia borghese di origine ebraica.
Durante il suo percorso di studi artistici incontrò la pittrice polacca Felka Platek, anch'essa proveniente da una famiglia ebraica, con la quale si sposò nel 1937.
Nel 1933, con l'avvento del nazismo, Nussbaum fuggì prima in Italia e poi in Belgio, inizialmente ad Ostenda e in seguito a Bruxelles.
Non essendo stato in grado di ottenere la cittadinanza belga, venne arrestato all'inizio del secondo conflitto mondiale in quanto cittadino tedesco, subendo la deportazione presso il campo di Saint-Cyprien, nel sud della Francia.
Dopo la resa, Nussbaum e la moglie fuggirono nuovamente a Bruxelles, riuscendo così ad evitare la consegna alle autorità tedesche.
Rimasti nascosti nella capitale belga per quasi quattro anni, i due coniugi furono arrestati il 20 giugno 1944 in seguito alla denuncia da parte di un vicino di casa.
Deportati il 31 luglio ad Auschwitz, Nussbaum e la Platek vennero uccisi nelle camere a gas il 2 agosto dello stesso anno.
Opere
A lungo dimenticato, la sua pittura fu riscoperta solo nel corso degli anni settanta.
È autore di numerose opere allegoriche (ad esempio Il trionfo della morte, del 1944) o rappresentanti la condizione ebraica sotto l'occupazione nazista - in particolare Autoritratto con passaporto ebraico, del 1943.
Nel 1998 ad Osnabrück è stata inaugurata la Felix Nussbaum Haus, museo ospitante circa 160 dipinti dell'artista.
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