(Berlin 1886–1972 Krailing bei Munich)
Portrait of the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, bronze with dark patina, signed and dated Rudolf Belling 1927, height 19 cm, (PP)

Executed originally in plaster in 1927, it was cast in bronze in the same year in an edition of 10 copies.

Provenance:
Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 30 November 1996, lot 170
Private Collection Sotheby’s London, 27 June 2001, lot 181
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibition:
Pistoia, Grandi maestri, piccole sculture da Depero a Beverly Pepper, Palazzo Sozzifanti, 6 April – 30 June 2013, exh. cat., page 28, ill. 29 (curated by Lara Vinca Masini)

Literature:
Charles L. Kuhn, German Expressionism and Abstract Art, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1957, no. 123, ill.of another copy; Winfried Nerdinger, Rudolf Belling, Berlin, 1980, page 210, no. 58, plate 143, ill. of another copy.

Alfred Flechtheim (1878-1937) was befriended with Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and the business partner of Gustave Kahnweiler with whom he ran a gallery of contemporary art in Frankfurt. Rudolf Belling, who was regarded as a ‘degenerate artist’, emigrated from Germany to Istanbul in 1937.
In the present work, which depicts the art dealer in profile, Belling displays no interest in volume, instead rather, he appears to have been fascinated by Flechtheim’s sharp facial features, his prominent nose, wide mouth and, in particular, his forehead.