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Jewish artist's work tells of life fleeing persecution

He’s a forgotten painter, but his story as a German Jew in exile during World War II is unforgettable. Now, thanks to a retrospective of Felix Nussbaum’s life works on show in Paris, thousands are learning of his harrowing tale.

Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück, ADAGP, Paris 2010
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Nussbaum report, produced for Network Europe

Amanda Morrow

Just as Anne Frank told the story of a life in hiding through words, Nussbaum does so through painting. These haunting images, depictions of a life rotting away, are being showcased at the Jewish Museum of Art and History.

The sombre canvases give way to a careful use of colour. Recurring themes of fear, despair and anxiety abound in a repertoire that tells the story of a man on the run from his Nazi persecutors.

Exhibition curator Nathalie Hazan-Brunet says the collection narrates a journey of self-discovery by a man grappling with his identity both as a Jew and as an artist.

Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück, ADAGP, Paris 2010

Although Nussbaum’s work draws from multiple influences at a time when the metaphysical movement, whose best-known exponent was Italian Giorgio de Chirico, was challenging expressionism, which was particularly strong in Germany, Hazan-Brunet says his style does not change radically with the rise of the Third Reich.

“Actually, it’s always the same vocabulary, which he borrows a lot from Chirico and all the painters belonging to this movement – that is the use of models, empty spaces, several perspectives,” Hazan-Brunet says.

“Through this movement, most German artists at the time expressed their disorientation, their sense of loss. His style does not change a lot but it is true that as the situation becomes more tragic, his painting radically evolves. He has a lot of courage because he knows about the end.”

The Nussbaum series begins with his first steps into the art world as a student in Berlin in 1920, and ends weeks before his death in Auschwitz in 1944.

Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück, ADAGP, Paris 2010

When Hitler took power, Nussbaum was on a scholarship in Rome. Propaganda promoting Nazi art and Aryan heroism followed – and so begins Nussbaum’s life in exile, and the emotional isolation so evident in his creations.

Nussbaum fled to Brussels, in 1940 was deported by the Nazis to France’s Saint Cyprien camp, where he made drawings of Jews living in terror.

Miraculously, he escaped, returning to Brussels, where he and his wife Felka were hidden by friends who provided art supplies.

During these darkest years, Nussbaum created his two most central works – both self-portraits – one as a naked artist, and the other tagged as a Jew.

So, given his eyewitness account of the Holocaust, why isn’t Nussbaum better-known? Are his paintings really so impressive, or is it his life story that’s fuelling the fuss?

Hazan-Brunet says Nussbaum has gone largely unnoticed because it’s been difficult to classify his work.

“His work, one might say, is a collage of influences. It was difficult because he was brought up at the time of New Objectivity but there are a lot of trends within the New Objectivity,” she says.

Berlinische Galerie © ADAGP, Paris 2010

“So this difficulty to classify his work made him partially unknown, and people related to his work as a very dark and tragic work. But now, through this exhibition, one is aware of the incredible quality of his painting, of his originality, and that this eccleticism is not a weakness.

“He was very sophisticated. He was always playing. He deals also with politics – it’s very interesting, complex work. I must say, for us it has been a discovery."

Nussbaum was tracked down by his Nazi persecutors and sent to Auchwitz, where his family had already perished, in July 1944. He died there in August. Just one month later, Brussels was liberated.

Visitors to the exhibition are struck by the sense of panic and misery that it evokes. Monique came straight to the museum after seeing Nussbaum posters on the Paris metro.

“I was impressed by their allure. As you pass them in the metro’s corridors, they call to you. I was surprised by this, and knew immediately that I had to go and see these paintings,” she says.

Bertrand, previously unfamiliar with Nussbaum, says he is struck by Nussbaum’s strength and expression.

Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück, ADAGP, Paris 2010

“He is a real painter, in a real universe, influenced by Chirico, Le Douanier Rousseau, but even more advanced than them,” he adds.

Nussbaum was only too aware of his impending fate but continued painting as type of self-affirmation and survival, says Hazan-Brunet.

Before his arrest, he gave many of his works to a close friend, asking that they not be allowed to die along with him.

“You have some paintings with high walls, like a jail, but sometimes behind the walls you have a tree," Hazan-Brunet says.

“They are always bare and naked but sometime you have little flowers so maybe he sometimes believed that he would be saved. But I believe his main hope was that his paintings would survive.”

The Nussbaum exhibition will be showing in Paris’s Museum of Jewish Art and History until 23 January.

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