1945
oil on canvas
71 x 112 cm (28 x 44 in.)
signed and dated upper right

PROVENANCE
Gifted by the artist to the present owner in 1945

LOT NOTES
Arthur Kaufmann was an important figure in the Neue Sachlichkeit [New Objectivity] art movement. He was also a founding member of the Junge Rheinland group in 1919, whose members including other notable artists such as Gert Wollheim and Otto Dix. A Jewish artist, Kauffman was dismissed from his teaching post at the Dusseldorf School of Applied Arts in 1933. Fleeing Germany, Kaufmann relocated to the United States with the help of an affidavit from the composer George Gershwin, the portrait of whom by Kaufmann is at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In the United States, Kaufmann specialized in portrait painting, many of which happened to be portraits of leading Jewish figures of the time (including Albert Einstein). The present lot being sold, Girl Reading on a Daybed, is actually a portrait, painted from life, of the present owner, and as remained in the family until now. Lot 109 in the sale, sold by the same owner, is a portrait of her mother painted by Kaufmann at the same time.