Oil on canvas; 55 x 50 cm. Felix Nussbaum was a German surrealist painter. He was born in Osnabrück the son of Rahel and Philipp Nussbaum. Philipp was a World War I veteran and German patriot before the rise of the Nazis. He was an amateur painter when he was younger, but was forced to pursue other means of work for financial reasons. He therefore encouraged his son’s artwork passionately. Nussbaum was a lifelong student, beginning his formal studies in 1920 in Hamburg and Berlin and continuing as long as the current political situation allowed him In his earlier works, Felix was heavily influenced by Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau and he eventually pays homage to Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà as well. Carl Hofer’s expressionist painting influenced Felix’s careful approach to color. In 1933, Nussbaum was studying on scholarship in Rome at the Berlin Academy of the Arts when the Nazis gained control of Germany. Adolf Hitler sent his Minister of Propaganda in April to Rome to explain to the artist elites how "a Nazi artist is to develop", which entailed promoting heroism and the Aryan race. Nussbaum began to understand that a Jewish artist like himself could no longer remain at the academy. Felix and and his wife Felka would spend the next ten years in exile, mostly in Belgium. Thus began Felix's emotional and artistic isolation. 1944 marked the fruition of the deadly Nazi machine’s plans for the Nussbaum family. Philipp and Rahel Nussbaum were killed at Auschwitz in February. In July, Felix and his wife were found hiding in an attic by German armed forces. They were arrested and given the numbers XXVI/284 and XXVI/285. On August 2, they arrived in Auschwitz and a week later, Felix’s fears came to reality. He was murdered at the age of 39. On September 3, Nussbaum’s brother was sent to Auschwitz. On September 6, his sister-in-law and niece were murdered in Auschwitz. In December, his brother – the last of the family – died from exhaustion in the camp at Stutthof. With one fell swoop, the Nussbaum family was officially and completely exterminated.
