Executed in 1930, Felix Nussbaum likely painted the present work whilst studying in Berlin. He began his formal studies in 1920 in Hamburg and continued to study for as long as the political situation unraveling throughout Europe allowed him to. In these formative years the artist was heavily influenced by the artworks of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Rousseau and later Giorgio de Chrico and Karl Hofer.

Männliches Porträt is a rare and impressive example of Nussbaum’s work at a period in his life when the artist was still experiencing a degree of creative freedom before his liberties were curtailed as a result of his Jewish heritage. The man in the present work is not identified but the expressive quality with which his facial features, and in particular his beard, have been articulated recalls the influence that van Gogh had upon Nussbaum. The oriental wallpaper visible in the background represents a motif from a fairytale and adds an element of magical realism into the present work, the imagery standing in stark contrast to the suit and shiny top hat of the sitter.

The melancholy expression worn by the figure could be read as a prophetic feeling of angst for what was to come in the years ahead. Nussbaum’s later works would record with searing honesty the horrors being enacted across Germany and Fascist Europe and some of his most iconic paintings belong to this painful period in history. Nussbaum continued to paint right up until the final year of his life in 1944 when he was killed at Auschwitz aged 39. Within the space of one year the Nazis had murdered the entire Nussbaum family in various camps. Männliches Porträt was acquired from the estate of the artist by the Galerie Hasenclever in Munich and it comes to auction now from a private collects ion with whom it has remained for the last twenty five years.