Provenance
Until 1942, owned by the Friedlaender/Samuel family | probably owned by Doris Hahn, Berlin after 1942 | around 1967, given to the Academy of the Arts, Berlin
Under the pseudonym "Mynona", or "anonym" spelled backwards, German philosopher Salomo Friedlaender (1871–1946) primarily published fiction, among others in Herwarth Walden's magazine Der Sturm and Franz Pfemfert's Die Aktion. After relocating to Berlin in 1906, Mynona initially worked as a freelance writer and became involved in Expressionist circles from 1910. In October 1933, he and his family had to emigrate to Paris, where he died in poverty in September 1946. His sister, painter Anna Samuel (born in 1874, née Friedlaender), was no longer alive at this point. Together with her husband Salomon, she was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 24 August 1942, where she died on 10 October 1942.
It is said that, in 1892, she produced an oil painting with a portrait of her brother, which is still to be found in the art collection of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In front of a dark – almost black – background, the porcelain-like face and bright shirt of the subject stand out. No date can be made out on the work. Stylistically, the painting appears to have been created later on, possibly in the 1920s, perhaps based on a portrait photograph.
The picture probably came into the possession of the Akademie der Künste from the provenance of artist Dorothee (Doris) Hahn (1895–1973). Her collection formed the basis for the Salomo-Friedlaender/Mynona Archive, which was opened with an exhibition in 1972 and is to be found here in the Literature Archive. The holdings also include material by Eva Samuel from Tel Aviv, Ludwig Samuel's wife, the son of Mynona's sister Anna, and Mynona's Paris estate first donated by Hartmut Geerken in 2003.
Hahn had been friends with Mynona and his sister Anna Friedlaender since the 1910s. She corresponded with Mynona until his death, often on philosophical questions, and kept extensive family material about them, including lots of mementos from Anna Friedlaender's apartment . It is highly likely that this painting was also among the items entrusted to her. Hahn made a detailed list of her "Friedlaender-Mynona Collection" for the Archive of the Academy of the Arts in 1967. Listed as the first item on the "List of Image Material of the Collection: Mynona" is "1 portrait MYNONA, 21 years old, oil - 0.45x0.50 by Anna Samuel née Friedlaender (sister of Mynona, 19 years old)".