Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück on 11 December 1904. He was the second son of Philipp Nussbaum and his wife Rahel. He grew up in the security of a bourgeois Jewish merchant family. His father ran a hardware store with his cousin Simon Gossels in Osnabrück. Art and music were just as much a part of the cheerful family’s bourgeois lifestyle as holidays on Norderney and in glamorous Ostend. Nussbaum’s father was an enthusiastic hobby painter who would have liked to become a painter himself in his youth. He strongly encouraged the artistic interests of his youngest son Felix and supported him in his plan to study painting. The family, who lived in a villa in the Schlossstraße in Osnabrück, did not abide by strict religious laws, but rather those of Reform Judaism. At the age of 21, Felix Nussbaum painted "The Two Jews" to demonstrate his commitment to Judaism, which he later only occasionally focussed on in his works of art. In his painting of 1926, the interior of the Osnabrück synagogue became the scene of a generational conflict: in the foreground, the parish cantor Abraham Elias Gittelsohn appears as a strict representative of Orthodox Judaism. But besides the synagogue’s magnificent interior architecture, the young painter is the central motif of the painting, his sceptical gaze directed straight at the viewer. In this picture he focuses on the conflict between constant efforts at adaptation and the preservation of his Jewish cultural identity, which he constantly witnessed in his parents’ assimilated generation. Even though Nussbaum confidently professed his Judaism with this painting, he did not want to be seen as a “Jewish” painter. At the beginning of his studies, he virtually neglected this theme.

Nussbaum began studying art in Hamburg in 1922, but left for the artistic metropolis of Berlin in the summer semester of 1923. He studied with Cesar Klein, among others, and went on to become a Meisterschüler (master pupil) of Hans Meid in 1928. At only 23 years of age, he held his first solo exhibition in the Casper Gallery in Berlin’s Hallesche Ufer. There are still strong reminiscences of van Gogh in his early works which suggest a confrontation with his father’s artistic outlook. Felix Nussbaum's "Self Portrait with Green Hat" dating back to 1927 is a tribute to van Gogh's many self-portraits. During the time spent in Berlin, Nussbaum became less preoccupied with his father’s artistic idols. Henri Rousseau, Georgio de Chirico and Carl Hofer replaced van Gogh as Nussbaum's stylistic influence and spiritual models. His pictures were already earning many favourable reviews early in his career – the critics emphasised in particular his “peculiar fantasy of love and death, of innocence and black comedy, of gruesomeness and childlike delight”. "Radio Tower No. 2" is an example of his much-praised humorous ideas. In addition, there are themes such as melancholy and mourning, which only appear ironic on the surface. They partly reveal Nussbaum's fears, which he tries to calm through his painting. Nussbaum used a trip to southern France in 1928 to revive the role models of his youth, but also ultimately to distance himself from them. In "Les Alyscamp" and "Countryside in Provence", a man with a straw hat walks along a street with a stick and seems to be leaving the picture. This is a reference to Nussbaum’s great role model van Gogh, from whom he is taking his leave and returning to Berlin with his own style.

In 1929, Felix Nussbaum rented his own studio in the Xantener Strasse, making it clear that he was established as an independent painter. The painting "Memory of Norderney" from the same year deals with this farewell to youth: In front of the picturesque façade of the Hotel Villa Nordsee stands an oversized postcard, the gaff of a trawler drilling through. The strangely frozen representation of the Rousseauesque figures seems to refer to the happy, childishly cheerful world of the past, as the text of the postcard suggests: “A feeling of grief – which, rolls over the soul like a wheel. But nevertheless I am not a killjoy – and we are a very merry party. So let us leave the things that are invisible to our eyes to the modern painters. For today, heartfelt greetings and kisses, your (loving) son Felix". At the same time, Nussbaum thus commits himself to mimetic art, well aware that there is a reality behind the visible world, such as his fears and threats, for which he seeks an adequate means of expression in his paintings. Here he was in some ways using the metaphysical forms of de Chiricos. Only later did he succeed in finding his own language for the inexplicable and invisible in terms of content and form. "The Folly Square" plays a special role in Felix Nussbaum's early work from 1931. It belongs to the collection of the Berlinische Galerie and with it, Nussbaum succeeded in creating a landmark image for the art scene around 1930. It deals with generational change, and is also to be understood as a clear criticism of the Prussian Academy. Here, Nussbaum and a group of like-minded young artists fight against the academy, although he retains a friendly tone with his “artistic playfulness”. Liebermann is even said to have been amused by this picture: “He'll almost be as good as me.”

From 1931, the artist from Osnabrück was one of the greats among the young generation of Berlin artists. As a culmination of his rapid success, Felix Nussbaum received a scholarship to the German Academy, Villa Massimo, in Rome in 1932. Nussbaum used his reluctance to travel to Italy – “I'm sure I'll become kitsch down there” – in his painting "Narcissus", which, in turn, is an artistic self-reflection. For Nussbaum, Italy was the country of a bygone era, the embodiment of the educated middle classes’ understanding of art, and thus ultimately also of his father, whose artistic outlook he had meanwhile left behind. For Felix Nussbaum, artistic inspiration came from Paris and not from Italy, where “everything seemed so archaeological” to him. Nevertheless, he left for Italy in October 1932, never to return to Germany. Thus Nussbaum's first works in Italy are marked by the rejection of the “kitsch” cliché of a land of longing – with bleak motifs such as old walls and abandoned courtyards, Nussbaum draws a morbid picture of the south.

In spring 1934, Nussbaum met his parents in Rapallo. It was the last time he was to see them as they were intending to emigrate to Switzerland on 26 February 1934. His parents went back to Germany, their homesickness stronger than their fear of the increasing threat. His concern for his parents is also reflected in his gouaches "Cemetery Bench" and "The Sick Rider". While the old couple mourn the loss of their loved ones in the former, the latter refers to the father's decision to return: the rider runs directly into death’s arms without looking forward. Felix Nussbaum stayed abroad. Together with the Polish painter Felka Platek, whom he met in Berlin in 1924 and who emigrated with him, he arrived in the Belgian seaside resort of Ostend from Paris in 1935 on a tourist visa. Here, he was increasingly confronted with the conditions of emigration: the struggle for residence permits, the constant change of accommodation, the lack of response to his art. The "Self Portrait with Tea Towel" concludes the sequence of his self-questioning. As a young man with a naked torso, Nussbaum stands in front of the dark silhouette of the roofs of Ostend. He has tied a tea towel around his shoulder, as is common in Germany. It conveys a touch of domesticity and represents a little bit of home. In this respect, despite the flower behind his ear, the sitter does not appear provocative, but vulnerable: as a human being and as an artist, and, since the Nuremberg Laws, also as a Jew. For this is not only indicated by the strange head covering, but also by the tea towel, which he has wrapped around his shoulders like a prayer shawl. Like no other artist, Felix Nussbaum was able to translate this emotional state of emigrants, the loss of inner security into his self-portraits. Besides the affirmation of his self-portrait, Nussbaum tries, as in Italy, to appropriate the foreign world through his pictures. But the tourist perspective has changed, motifs are created of constantly darkening monotony in ports and streets. They are places of abandonment, hopelessness and inactivity. The sense of threat is increasingly visible in the themes of his paintings, for example in the painting "Krakenpoller", in which the threatening form and size of the central pictorial object become a metaphor for this state of mind. Likewise the "Fish Woman in the Harbour", who lurks, by no means harmlessly, but threateningly. As a final farewell to the port city of Ostend, Nussbaum paints a "Forest of Masts", full of symbolic allusions. This picture was created in Brussels, as Felix Nussbaum and Felka Platek had already left Ostend and moved there in September 1937 and married in October of the same year. The picture seems to be a summary of the experiences he had encountered in Ostend: the senseless waiting, constantly having to battle against the storm that blows hard into his face, his lack of perspective as an artist in exile – this is what the interwoven masts stand for, which are more like artist's utensils and thus become a metaphor for his personal situation.

Nussbaum befriended Belgian sculptor Dolf Ledel and received a few exhibition opportunities through his contacts. In 1938 he took part in the exhibition of the Free Artists’ Association in Paris. The title “Free German Art” is directed against the Nazi exhibition “Degenerate Art” that took place in Munich in the same year. Nussbaum's contributions to this exhibition, "The Pearls" and the "Still Life with Barred Windows", are political statements against war and the ban on painting. It must have been disappointing for him that these pictures were not exhibited due to customs complications – in the period that followed, he did not create any more explicitly "political" works. While Felix Nussbaum develops his personal metaphor from the precise observation of external reality for one last time in the "Forest of Masts", he would later deal with the pathos formulas of facial expressions and gestures as the adequate manifestation of internal reality. For him, this is the only way to respond to the increasing threat. "Self Portrait in the Studio", created around 1938, can be regarded as the image of the artist in emigration. It is to be interpreted both politically and personally: the artist is unable to express himself because, as an emigrant, he is not allowed to work. At the same time, the picture conveys the horror of his own situation of stagnation and lack of recognition. He tries to counter this by adapting to the Belgian taste in art, which was influenced by the École de Paris. “For a short time he tried to be surrealistic, but not without a twist" his friend Fritz Steinfeld remembered. In spite of the clear formal intention of these works, Nussbaum's real situation always appears mirrored: stagnation, disorientation, annoyance. He sent "Painter and Model", which was also painted around 1938/39, to his father in Amsterdam as a kind of report about his situation as an artist. "Self Portrait in Surreal Landscape" uses the formal means of the École de Paris to portray the way the "Self Portrait in the Studio" describes his uncertainty: either he remains true to his art, without any kind of resonance, or he adapts himself, whereby he perceives the danger of becoming stuck in mere form as "Surreal Landscape with Organ Grinder" seems to do. The organ grinder must have possessed a special symbolic power for Nussbaum, since he repeatedly uses this figure in major works as a symbol of his artistry. He is represented here faceless and standing in the shadows, and could refer to his situation as an artist under the conditions of exile.

In 1939, Nussbaum experienced the beginning of the Second World War in Belgium as a German Jew. He was preoccupied with the question as to which nation he felt he belonged: in his host country he was the unloved foreigner, in his homeland the persecuted Jew. As in his self-portrait sequence from 1936, Felix Nussbaum questioned his identity in his "Self Portrait with Scabiosa". Here, he draws the picture of the non-warlike German, holding the blue flower of art and imagination rather than a rifle. Art takes on a new meaning for him. In "Secret", for example, he documents political events as if in a diary by trying to find images for his inner reality, which is determined by the outer reality, the political development. His art regains its life-stabilising meaning for him. Increasingly, he recognizes the connection of his fate, a hitherto individual experience, with that of the Jewish population in Germany. In early 1940 a number of still-life paintings emerged as a kind of inventory of the immediate environment, in which the things of “dead nature” became carriers of meaning and metaphors for his political circumstances. In the still life "Tombola", for example, Felix Nussbaum no longer transforms the environment that has become inexplicable to him into a “narrative” image, but into a cool and emotionless representation that, in the random and seemingly senseless combination of things, refers to the world that he finds inexplicable and confusing.

“La nature morte de Felix Nussbaum”, in a clipping dated 16 April 1940 from the French newspaper “Le Soir”, was created shortly before the invasion of Belgium by German troops on 8 May 1940. Two days later, Felix Nussbaum was arrested by the Belgian authorities, as were all Germans in the German Reich who were fit for military service. After several days being transported in a cattle wagon, he was interned in the camp of St. Cyprien in the south of France, the “hell of the Pyrenees”. In August 1940, Felix Nussbaum, shocked by his experience in the camp, signed a paper from the French camp authorities in which he applied for “return to the Reich”. At a stopover in a barracks in Bordeaux, he managed to escape together with a school friend whom he knew from Osnabrück. He returned to Brussels, where Felka Platek was waiting for him. In the following years he repeatedly painted pictures of his camp experiences. Proximity to death caused by illness and the unbearable hygienic conditions unleashed in him a fear that they “would all be killed”. The camp finally became a synonym for captivity in occupied Belgium, where the legislation of the German military government deprived the Jews of every opportunity to live. When the legislation against Jews in Belgium was completed on 28 May 1942 with the so-called "Jewish Badge Decree", deportation from the occupied territories to the extermination camps of the East began in August 1942. When Nussbaum then fled his studio in autumn 1942, three large-scale pictures remained behind. In these, Nussbaum dealt with the remaining possibilities for reacting to the threat to his existence posed by legislation. Whether to flee or to persevere was the question occupying him during this time.

"St. Cyprien" presents common captivity and the thought of escape. The picture is based on the description of life in the camp, as Nussbaum had already captured it in a preliminary drawing made in 1940 immediately after his escape from St. Cyprien. Against the background of his experience in the camp, this is an allegorical representation, in this case referring to the four “characters” of the sons of Passover Haggadah: the evil, the wise, the naive and the “who does not know how to ask”. None of these characters offers Felix Nussbaum an answer to the question of salvation. He himself carries a walking stick and a bundle of his belongings and seems prepared to flee: but where to? - as is shown by the perspective on the globe held together by barbed wire. “Soir” could offer a possible explanation for his perseverance, showing Felix Nussbaum and Felka Platek in a strangely awkward embrace. He himself, half dressed, seems ready to escape; his wife, standing on his left foot, seems to be preventing him from fleeing. In the last picture of this sequence, the "Organ Man", Nussbaum draws a picture of general doom – both a reference to his artistry and a familiar metaphor. The organ grinder has stopped playing, the crank is missing and the organ pipes have become bones. He looks out of the picture apathetically, the scenery of doom behind him. He knows it is too late to escape. There will be no salvation by our own efforts. The possibilities for reaction that Nussbaum addresses in his pictures – fleeing or persevering – are obsolete: Nussbaum is wanted by the Gestapo. Since the beginning of the deportations, Nussbaum's pictures have become the diary of Jew’s isolation, living in hiding from the Nazis.

After fleeing their studio, Felix Nussbaum and Felka Platek found a hiding place with the Ledel family between autumn 1942 and March 1943. At the beginning of March, the Ledel family decided to flee to the Ardennes. They wanted to take the Nussbaums with them, but Felka no longer had the strength and decided to stay in Brussels. Felix Nussbaum did not leave her alone, and they both returned to their apartment in Rue Archimède. Their landlord had set up a hidden attic in their house so that he could always show the Gestapo an empty apartment during raids. As they fearfully ran back and forth between attic and apartment, Nussbaum only created still-life pictures in pencil and gouache, which are precisely dated like a diary. There were no more oil paintings during this time, because the smell of turpentine would have given them away. Nussbaum painted his last paintings after he moved into a studio in the basement of Rue General Gatry in May/June 1943. In a state of deep emotion, he created these final pictures that deal with Jewish fate, helping him to maintain the hope of survival. He created two complementary self-portraits in which he aimed to gain an insight into his existence. In "Self Portrait at the Easel", Felix Nussbaum assured himself of his destiny as an artist. His gaze is cool and self-confident and by no means fearful, as one would expect in his situation. He does not reveal his of inner thoughts, as the picture on the easel is not in view. Here he develops his own theory of colour, as shown by the open paint bottles, which are an expression of his state of mind. Brown, the colour of suffering, is the dominant colour of the "Organ Man"; blue, the colour of longing in the "Self Portrait at the Easel"; green, the colour of death, describes the mood of the "Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card". In this painting in August 1943, Nussbaum uses the image of the persecuted man with the Jewish star (which, incidentally, he never wore) and the Jewish passport imposed on him to make it clear that he is a Jew in the racist and legal sense of the Nazis and that he cannot escape their deadly extermination machinery. Like a prisoner, he is forced into a corner and shows the viewer his passport, from which his place of birth is deleted and his nationality is marked “sans” (without). He does not look at the viewer anxiously, but provocatively, full of self-confidence, accusing with his eyes, showing his resistance. Subsequently, he created images under the sign of the Jewish Star, which point far beyond his personal fate and which became images of Jewish fate.

Ever since "The Organ Man", Nussbaum knew that he would be unable to save himself, but he still continued to “resist” through his paintings. His final works are marked by a deep sense of mourning; they focus on the helpless waiting of the Jews faced with death. The "Grieving Couple", from 6 December 1943, illustrates the still and silent perseverance that is so typical of the situation. Nussbaum regarded this painting as more of a private analysis of his situation. The "Jew at the Window", on the other hand, can be seen as a more political piece – a portrayal of someone cast out by bourgeois society. The patch is the mark of the outcast. The man – trapped in a room akin to a prison cell – also wears a yellow star badge, which marks him out as a Jew. As they feature a window to the outside world, these paintings still offer a glimmer of hope. The military defeat of Nazi Germany seemed to be within touching distance, with the regime’s losses in Stalingrad and North Africa in 1943 pointing towards an end to the suffering. The preliminary drawings for Nussbaum’s last great paintings are still characterised by this partial hope. In the final version of "The Damned", however, any glimmer of hope has vanished. It is an image of inescapable death. Here he has brought together a series of images and expressions to create an allegorical representation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel which was also the case in "St. Cyprien". As Jews forced to go underground, they are rounded up in public and wait hopelessly for deportation. Nussbaum, seen in the middle of the group, is wearing nothing but rags. His facial expression is similar to "Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card". He has removed his yellow badge, and his hat too – the symbol of dignity. The hat has been replaced with a painter’s cap in a shade of green representing death. From a side street, skeletons carry coffins with the numbers 25,367 and 25,368 into the picture. This figure corresponds almost exactly to the number of Jews deported from Belgium. In the preliminary drawing, the pall-bearers do not yet block the means of escape via the street shown in the background. The story of a young boy named Jaqui, who would often visit Nussbaum in his atelier, is probably what caused the artist to change his mind. Following a moment of carelessness on the part of the child, which reveals his identity as Jewish, Nussbaum is certain that his discovery is only a matter of time. Nussbaum painted his portrait in late January 1944, in a touching work entitled "Jaqui on the Street". In his empathy with the helpless boy, left alone with the spectre of death, he not only portrays his own situation, but also infuses the painting with an accusatory tone, denouncing the inhuman conditions. In his final painting, "Triumph of Death", Nussbaum doubts the meaning of his art, which gave him the strength to carry on living for so long. He not only portrays a danse macabre in the traditional sense, but shows death raucously celebrating its successful destruction of western culture, the products of which lay broken amongst the rubble. The decaying organ man in the middle of the image bears hints of a self-portrait. The organ man, his alter ego, now stares apathetically. Only the paper kites drifting away from the image show any emotion, calling to mind the figures portrayed in "St. Cyprien". All colour has been drained from the painting; everything has been imbued with a pallid shade of brown. A torn sheet from a calendar shows the date on which Felix Nussbaum finished the painting and gave up on the world: Tuesday, 18 April 1944. On 20 June 1944, Felix Nussbaum and Felka Platek were arrested following a targeted denunciation. Via Mechelen transit camp, they were deported to Auschwitz on 31 July 1944 on the last of 26 Belgian deportation trains – and it was at Auschwitz that they were murdered. On 6 September 1944, the Allies marched into Brussels.

The Felix Nussbaum collection in Osnabrück can trace its roots back to 1970. It owes its existence to the tremendous dedication of Auguste Moses-Nussbaum, the cousin of Felix Nussbaum. She campaigned for an investigation into the whereabouts of the paintings left behind in Brussels and took legal action to ensure their return to their legal owners. She also made sure that an inheritance of 100 paintings came to Osnabrück, the birthplace of Felix Nussbaum. Thanks to the hard work of the city of Osnabrück, the collection grew to more than 200 exhibits in the years that followed. Given the significance and extent of the collection, the city of Osnabrück decided to add the Felix Nussbaum-Haus to the Museum of Cultural History. In 1994, the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung acquired the Felix Nussbaum collection, enabling the extension to be completed. In 1995, the Jewish American architect Daniel Libeskind won the competition to design the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, beating 300 other entrants. This proved to be a stroke of luck, as the building has been showered with praise from both home and abroad. Libeskind successfully brought to life the interrelation between the architecture and the tragic combination of Felix Nussbaum’s life and work. On 16 July 1998, the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, built to the plans of Daniel Libeskind and holding the collection of the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung, opened its doors. Thanks to generous gifts and the tireless work of patrons and foundations, the city of Osnabrück has managed to acquire further works for the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus over the past 20 years. In particular, the Felix Nussbaum Foundation, which was set up in 2001 on the initiative of Hubert Schlenke (died 2014), can be credited with playing a major role in adding further works to the collection. Thanks to the financial support of several Osnabrück-based companies, the paintings sold by the Seev family and Shulamith Jaari-Nussbaum were added to the collection in the years 2000 and 2001. Also worthy of a mention are items belonging to Lisbeth Klein Foundation and the Dunham Klein Trust which passed to the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus in 2001.

The catalogue of works presents all paintings, drawings and occasional works of the artist Felix Nussbaum between 1919 and 1944. Alongside colour images of all works, the database also provides detailed information about the works and information on the artist’s oeuvre as a whole. This extensive compilation of all known works provides a new basis for exploring Felix Nussbaum as an artist. The basis for the updated compilation is the catalogue of works compiled by Peter Junk and Wendelin Zimmer (published as part of the monograph entitled "Felix Nussbaum – Life and Work", Rasch Bramsche and DuMont Cologne, 1982), to which more than 150 newly discovered pieces from recent decades have been added. In addition to detailed information on 477 pieces, the database also includes a comprehensive list of exhibitions and bibliography. Catalogue of works by Felix Nussbaum

Felka Platek was born in Warsaw in 1899 and moved to Berlin in the 1920s, where she began training as an artist under Ludwig Meidner. Here, she met Felix Nussbaum in 1925, marrying him in 1937 in exile in Belgium. In 1944, the two Jewish artists were murdered at Auschwitz. The painter Felka Platek is an example of the many young women who seized the opportunity to challenge clichéd perceptions of women in the spirit of optimism that prevailed in the Weimar Republic. However, their lives were destroyed by the Nazis. With two oil paintings and 26 gouaches, the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück is home to the world’s largest Felka Platek collection. Platek’s works have only rarely appeared on the art market – and little is known about her life. Therefore, research about Felka Platek is still in its infancy. Felka Platek’s works reflect the artist’s life and exemplify the works of the female artists of the “lost generation”. Many artists of this generation were not rediscovered until many decades later. And many more – such as Felka Platek and her work – are still waiting to be rediscovered.

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Biografie

1899	Felka Platek was born in the Warsaw Ghetto on 3 January
1923/24	Arrives in Berlin; Felka Platek plans to make a living as a painter
1924	Enrols at the Lewin Funke School, starts training as a portrait painter in the 1924/25 winter semester; enrols in the class of Ludwig Meidner and meets her future husband, Felix Nussbaum, who is also in the class
1929	The couple move into an apartment together
1932	Felka Platek leaves Berlin and follows Felix Nussbaum to Rome
1935	Emigrates permanently to Belgium (Ostend)
1937	Arrives in Brussels, marries Felix Nussbaum on 9 November
1940	German occupation of Belgium begins
1942 onwards	Felka and Felix Nussbaum pursued by the Gestapo; they hide in various locations in Brussels
1944	On 20 June, Felka-Platek Nussbaum and her husband are discovered, deported to Auschwitz and murdered there

Catalogue A catalogue covering the life and work of Felka Platek has been published by the publishing house of Museums- und Kunstverein Osnabrück e.V. (Osnabrück museum and art society): Felka Platek. Malerin und Lebensgefährtin. (Publishing house of Osnabrück museum and art society, Landschaftsverband Osnabrück), Christel Schulte, 2003 24 pages, numerous colour illustrations, €5.00, ISBN 3-926235-25-X.