1904 Osnabrück
1944 Auschwitz

The scion of a rich entrepreneurial family, Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück in 1904. After attending the Hamburg School for the Decorative and Applied Arts in 1922 and 1923, Nussbaum went to Berlin and continued to study at the Lewin-Funke School, a private academy, and at the Vereinigte Staatsschule der Kunstakademie in Berlin. There he was in Hans Meid's master class from 1928 until 1930, subsequently freelancing until 1932. During the late 1920s and early 1930s Nussbaum had successful shows at Berlin art galleries. In 1932 he had a grant for the Villa Massimo in Rome. But the National Socialists set fire to his studio, destroying about one hundred and fifty works. Nussbaum decided not to return to Germany. In 1933 his grant was withdrawn but he stayed on in Italy. In 1935 Felix Nussbaum emigrated to Belgium via France. After German troops invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, Nussbaum was classified as an 'enemy alien', arrested and interned at the Saint-Cyprien camp in the Pyrenees. Late in August Nussbaum succeeded in fleeing the camp and returning to Belgium. From 1942 to 1944 Nussbaum was hidden in a cramped attic at 22 rue Archimède, Brussels. In order not to betray his whereabouts by the smell of turpentine, Nussbaum painted in the cellar of an art dealer who had befriended him. There Nussbaum painted what is probably his best-known work: 'Selbstbildnis mit Judenpass' ['Self-Portrait with Jewish Passport'] in 1943, It is a moving reflection on Nussbaum's own desolate situation. Nussbaum was denounced on 20 June 1944 and arrested by the German Wehrmacht. Six weeks later he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered early in August at the age of thirty-nine. Until the mid-1950s Nussbaum's work was believed to have been lost. It was not revealed until 1955 that friends of Nussbaum's had safeguarded quite a number of his works. They were presented to the public in 1971 at a memorial exhibition in his native Osnabrück. Thus Nussbaum's wish came to be fulfilled: 'Even though I may perish, don't let my pictures die; show them to posterity!' In 1998 the Felix Nussbaum House, designed by the American architect Daniel Libeskind, was opened. It owns one hundred and seventy of the artist's works.

Nussbaum, Felix