Who is the man looking to the right on the medallion-shaped, round, 60-cm-high plaster relief by the artist Paul Hamann (1891-1973)?
Identifying the person depicted would not least be of great significance to provenance research, as it would allow a targeted search of databases or exhibition and auction catalogues. This is further complicated by the fact that the inventory books for the art collection of the Akademie der Künste provide no indication of when it was purchased or of its previous owner. However, looking at the work itself provides an initial starting point for research. It is signed on the rim by the artist with "Hamann London 30." The precise location of "London" and the possible year, namely 1930, initially focused the research on the artist and work.
Paul Hamann was a German sculptor who studied at the Landeskunstschule Hamburg until 1914 and was given the opportunity during his studies to work as an assistant to Auguste Rodin in Paris. In 1919, he was one of the co-founders of the Hamburg Secession and remained a member until its dissolution in 1933. Up until 1926, Hamann lived with his wife, artist and ceramicist Hilde, née Guttmann (1898-1987), primarily at the artists' colony of Worpswede, until the couple moved to Berlin.
Hamann became quite famous for his "Lebendmasken" (Living Masks)“, which he produced from 1926 using an uncomplicated and relatively painless process he developed himself. The "Maskierten" (masked persons) included famous personalities such as Bertolt Brecht, Man Ray, Aldous Huxley and Renée Sintenis – as well as British art critic and author Raymond Mortimer. His Living Mask, like the plaster relief at the Akademie, was made in 1930 and is to be found at the National Portrait Gallery in London. If one compares the head of the mask with the face on the Akademie's relief, there are certain similarities. Hamann spent several months in London in 1930 at the invitation of Sir Harold Nicolson, a diplomat who had been the ambassador in Berlin in the 1920s, and was able to show his mask portraits in an exhibition at the Warren Gallery.
Following attacks by the National Socialists on the artists' colony at Breitenbachplatz in Berlin where Paul and Hilde Hamann lived and because of their Jewish heritage, the artist couple initially emigrated to Paris in 1933 and then to London in 1936. The were granted British citizenship at the beginning of the 1950s.
Many of Paul Hamann's earlier works are considered lost. In the 1950s, Hilde and Paul Hamann apparently tried in vain to reclaim the property and farmhouse in Worpswede, which had been confiscated during the Nazi period.