Felix Nussbaum, born in Osnabrück in 1904, studied fine and applied art in Hamburg and Berlin in the 1920s. At the end of the decade, and at the beginning of the 1930s, he had already enjoyed some success with his exhibitions in Berlin. His family and self portraits, as well as his paintings of towns and landscapes which appeared around this time were influenced by the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau. In Nussbaum's pictures his attempt to comment on works by Giorgio de Chircos and Carlo Carrás both figuratively and using his imagination are evident. The influence of Carl Hofer is clear through his technique and use of colour. Nussbaum's paintings reflect a certain carefreeness and a macabre sense of humour. Despite the stylistic closeness of paintings to the new functionalism movement, they retain Nussbaum's own surreal vision.
In 1931, Nussbaum achieved his artistic breakthrough with the painting "Der tolle Platz" ("The crazy place"). Ironically, this painting criticised the sense of nobility that abounded in the department for art at Berlin's Prussian Academy and its president, the painter Max Liebermann. In 1932, in recognition of his work, Nussbaum was awarded a Villa-Massimo scholarship in Rome.
The seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 delayed his return to Germany. From this time onward, together with his wife-to-be, the Jewish-Polish painter Felka Platek, Nussbaum travelled through Italy, France and Belgium. In 1937 the couple took a flat in Brussels. Nussbaum's work from this time - which include unusual self portraits - tell of his artistic isolation, hopelessness, self doubt and personal fear of persecution. His art appeared to become increasingly political. The paintings he produced in these and the years that followed bear witness to the unmistakable style of the artist living in exile.
After German army entered Belgium in 1940, Nussbaum was arrested and interned in the camp Saint Cyprien in southern France. He escaped from barracks in Bordeaux and in 1942, he disappeared with his wife in Brussels.
He painted his experiences in the camps over and over again. For him, the camp was a synonym of his imprisonment in occupied Belgium. While in hiding, every painting he created dealt with the fate of the Jews and gave him hope that he would survive.
The works that Nussbaum produced from 1940 onwards are his most expressive, both artistically and in their content. They comment on the horrors of the Holocaust in a symbolic and incomparable way. Nussbaum's best known paintings are "Selbstbildnis mit Judenpaß" ("Self portrait with Jewish identity card") and "Triumph des Todes" ("Triumph of Death"), his last work. In 1944, Nussbaum and his wife were arrested on suspicion of being informers, deported to Auschwitz and killed.
The Felix Nussbaum Collection in Osnabrück was started in 1970 when the pictures, obtained by the Belgian courts in an envelope containing more than 100 of them, where brought back to Osnabrück, Nussbaum's birthplace, by the Nussbaum heirs. In 1971 the first major exhibition of paintings by the artist was held in the Dominican Church in Osnabrück. In the 1980's his paintings were presented to an international audience in special exhibitions in New York, Jerusalem, Manchester and Angers in France.
The largest special exhibition of one hundered of Nussbaum's paintings took place in the Osnabrück Museum of Cultural History in 1990. His paintings were shown in Paris and Barcelona as part of the 1994 exhibition "La ville, art et architecture en Europe 1870 - 1933", at the Venice Biennal in 1995 and the exhibition "Art an Power - Europe under the Dictators" at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1995.
The 1994/95 Nussbaum exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam attracted media attention and over 40.000 visitors. In 1997 60.000 people visited the Nussbaum exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In July 1998 the Felix Nussbaum Building opened with an exhibition, which featured 45 paintings by Nussbaum. 30.000 people visited the opening exhibition, which run seven weeks. From 24th October 1998 to 17th January 1999 the 26th Exhibition of the Council of Europe "1648 - War and Peace in Europe" took place in the Felix Nussbaum Building.
Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, Lotter Str. 2, 49078 Osnabrück, Germany
Opening times: Di-Fr 11-18, Sa,So 10-18pm Uhr
Information:
Inge Jaehner, Museum of Cultural history/Felix Nussbaum Building, Lotter Str. 2, 49078 Osnabrück, Germany, Tel. 0049/541/323-2209, Fax +0049/541/323-2224
or
Heiko Mitlewski, Department of culture and museums, Public relations, Dominikanerkirche, 49076 Osnabrück, Germany, Tel. 0049/541/323-3045, Fax 0049/541/323-2743
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Letzte Änderung: 23.06.2003 |
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