Provenance
probably 1968 purchase by the Academy of the Arts, Berlin (West) | 1995 included in the art collection of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
The subject, Ferruccio Busoni, an Italian pianist, conductor and music theorist, settled in Berlin with his family in 1894 and taught composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts until his death in 1924. Berlin also played an important role in the artistic work of painter Max Oppenheimer (1885–1954), also known as MOPP, who was born in Vienna in 1885. From 1911 to 1915, he contributed here to the magazine Die Aktion and also worked in the German capital from 1925 to 1931.
Busoni and Oppenheimer first met in Switzerland. The first portrait was painted in 1916 near Zurich, where Busoni lived in voluntary exile. This square version has been held at the Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin since 1926. The design of the seemingly cubistic picture reflects the musical vibrations of Busoni's piano playing, which unfold in the space around the pianist. In 1937, MOPP finished another oil painting with the same motif and chose a rectangular landscape format for it. Why did he make another version after so many years? Was it a commission? And what happened to the version that is now in our collection?
Max Oppenheimer fled National Socialism and Vienna for Switzerland and was later able to fetch some of his paintings under the pretence of preparing an exhibition. As he was refused a residency permit, he emigrated to New York a year later. There, the Nierendorf Gallery hosted Max Oppenheimer's first exhibition in the USA from March to April 1940. A painting with the title Portrait of Ferruccio Busoni at the piano was also shown. This was presumably a replica of the 1916 work; in addition to "30 x 30 inches on canvas" and "Painted in 1916", the following was also noted: "Original in the National Gallery, Berlin".
And this is where the trail initially went cold for the 1937 painting. It only turned up 31 years later. In the minutes of a meeting of the Academy of the Arts (West) in 1968, the purchase of a "Busoni painting by Oppenheimer" was discussed. The Berlin Senate Administration for Science and Art funded the purchase with a donation.
There is no information on the previous owner or seller on the inventory card for the painting. It simply notes: "Received from Hanseatenweg 1995". It was received against the background of the successive merger of the archival holdings of the Academies previously located in the East and West following reunification.