Rudolf Levy

Rudolf Levy was born into a Jewish family in Stettin on July 15, 1875. His father, Julius Levy, a merchant from a middle-class Jewish family, and his mother Therese Levy (née Rieß) came from Pomerania. After moving again to Danzig, Rudolf had a brother (Paul, *17.11.1876 - 1943 in Auschwitz) and a sister (Käthe, *4.12.1879 - 24.10.1954 in Tel Aviv).

After elementary school, the young Rudolf Levy attended a humanistic high school, which expressed the parents' desire for a comprehensive education for their children. Its artistic teaching content will leave a lasting impression on him. His father wanted him to study at university, but he wanted to be artistically active. Soon after, he left the gymnasium and began an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker.

At the age of 20, Rudolf Levy moved to Karlsruhe, where he attended two annual courses on architecture at the Grand Ducal School of Applied Arts in Baden. In 1897 he moved to Munich, where he had a studio. He applied to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. But his artistic works were not considered good by teachers, so he continued his education at one of the renowned private schools.

During this time, Rudolf Levy was part of a circle of artists who met at Café Stefanie in Munich-Schwabing. There he met later companions such as the painters and draftsmen Albert Weisgerber and Walter Bondy. Levy also played an important role in the free association Sturmfackel, whose members questioned bourgeois norms with humorous means.

In the winter of 1901/02, Levy began studying in the open-air studio in the garden of the Academy of the Impressionist painter Heinrich von Zügel. There he gained experience in oil painting as well as drawing nature. Although Zügel's enthusiasm for 19th century French painting (Delacroix, Carot, etc.) influenced him, Levy did not see any artistic advancement in this place and went to Paris.

In the fall of 1903, Rudolf Levy moved to Paris with his friend Walter Bondy. They knew each other from Munich and wanted to see the city that had given birth to the Modern Art of their time. Soon they had chosen the Café du Dôme in Montparnasse as their new regular haunt, unaware that "years later, for generations of painters, sculptors, poets, journalists from all over the world, the corners where this humble inn was located would mean something like the center of intellectual activity."

Their small circle was soon joined by other Munich friends, such as Hans Purrmann, Alfred Weisgerber, Jules Pascin and Will Howard. They painted together, exhibited in the first salons, and discussed the works of their models and friends. One who was both was the artist Henri Matisse, who had caused much turmoil in the 3rd Autumn Salon in 1906 with the artist group "Les Fauves". Together, the idea of a Matisse student studio was born. Many Germans, Norwegians, Swedes and Hungarians joined the student body, and the Académie Matisse was born. By 1910, more than 80 artists were working in the Académie's studios, but Matisse was visibly losing interest in teaching. Levy, who could celebrate in the meantime first artistic successes, took over for a short time even completely the teaching activity for Matisse, before it was finally closed in 1912.

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Levy used the free time, traveled to southern France, to Sanary, Cassis and L'Estaque and then to Stockholm. He meanwhile exhibited worldwide with: at the Sonderbundausstellung in Cologne, at group exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, at the famous Armory Show in New York and in 1914 also at the first exhibition of the Free Secession Berlin and the New Munich Secession. His friend and gallerist Alfred Flechtheim, whom he had also met at the Café du Dôme, showed the first exhibition of the artist friends from the Dôme in Germany at his Düsseldorf gallery in 1914. Included were 16 works by Rudolf Levy.

The outbreak of World War I meant that the exhibition could not travel through Germany as planned. Levy volunteered for the German Army. He served as a non-commissioned officer in Artois and Flanders and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class for his service in the battles for Artois and in Champagne. Due to his Jewish faith, however, he was denied a further military career. After the end of the war, he initially moved to Frankfurt am Main, but in early August 1919 he moved to Munich. There he soon met the photographer Eugenie (called Genia) Schindler, whom he married before the end of the year.

In early October 1921, Levy moved from Munich to Berlin. He traveled back and forth between cities a lot and built up a social environment in the circle of artists and art enthusiasts: For example, the siblings Erika and Klaus Mann, the director Erik Charell, and the writer and later friend Herbert Schlüter. For Rudolf Levy, the late 1920s marked the beginning of a period in his life in which his art became increasingly well-known - also in Germany. His works were purchased by more and more German museums and shown, for example, in Alfred Flechtheim's galleries in Düsseldorf and Berlin. The art dealer and collector brought French painters and the Parisian environment of German-speaking artists to Germany in the postwar period. In 1927, he also showed a first solo exhibition of Rudolf Levy's paintings in Berlin.

After two years in which Levy had stayed mainly in Paris, the artist arrived back in Berlin in 1926. Here he stayed in his studio on Kurfürstendamm, where he painted still lifes and portraits. Sometimes he was also in the nearby Romanisches Café, which at the time was considered the artists' meeting place par excellence. At the same time, Rudolf Levy enjoyed the free cultural activity in the Berlin of the Weimar years and visited, for example, costume festivals.

In 1927, Levy exhibited with other German artists at a German section of the Paris Autumn Salon. This was considered a turning point in art politics in the aftermath of World War I, in which France and Germany were war enemies. Levy was also represented in the annual exhibitions of the national Deutscher Künstlerbund: For example, in Hanover in 1927 he exhibited a still life and the figure painting Freundinnen (Girlfriends). He now passed on the artistic experience he had gained with Matisse in his own painting school. Levy also continued to participate in exhibitions of the Berlin Secession artists' association during these years.

After the handover of power to the National Socialists in Germany in January 1933, Levy, as a Jew, was ousted from the board of the Berlin Secession, which was gradually assimilated into National Socialist politics. He left Germany and traveled via Nice to Paris and finally to Rapallo (Italy), where he spent several months.

From the fall of 1935, Levy stayed in Mallorca in Cala Ratjada, where some political emigrants gathered. For all of them, this place was a stopover: everyone was waiting for news and financial support from home. For his livelihood, Levy kept selling some of his paintings and relied on the support of family members and friends. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Levy, like many other refugees, left the island for Marseille, where he obtained a passport. He traveled to Genoa and there reunited with his wife Genia, from whom he had presumably divorced by that time to protect her from anti-Semitic persecution. On October 1, 1936, he reached New York. But he could hardly get enthusiastic about the USA and returned to Europe in May 1937. Always accompanied by money worries, he arrived on the Italian island of Ischia in early 1938 after stays in Naples and Yugoslavia. At the same time in Germany, still lifes and landscape paintings by Rudolf Levy were also confiscated from public collections in 1937 as part of the Nazi "Degenerate Art" campaign. The whereabouts of some of his paintings remain unclear.

On Ischia, Levy is part of a circle of political emigrants, such as the painters Karli Sohn-Rethel and Kurt Craemer - both acquaintances from Düsseldorf times. Together, the friends tried to give each other support. For Levy, too, was plagued by constant money worries, an uncertain residence status, as well as loneliness and depression.

Like many other emigrants who had to flee Germany as political or racial persecutees, Levy also began his efforts to obtain a residence permit in Europe. From Ischia, he applied in vain for a visa for France and waited for a response from the Italian Ministry of the Interior, to which he had applied in desperation for a permit to stay.

When World War II broke out a few weeks later, on September 1, 1939, his residence permit was also not further extended and Levy was ordered to leave the country as soon as possible. With the help of a New York-based friend, Erik Charell, Levy then wanted to emigrate to America, for which he went to Genoa. But attempts to obtain visas for Chile or Ecuador failed - also for financial reasons. Levy was increasingly desperate.

After Levy's last attempt to obtain a visa for Ecuador failed for unknown reasons, Levy finally moved to Florence to the Pension Bandini, above the German Institute of Art History. The Institute still stands on this site today and offers art historians a popular starting point for their research. Levy experienced a sense of security and community there for the first time in a long time and began to paint again. More than fifty works survive from the two years between 1941 and 1943. He was even able to sell some works, but did not earn much from them.

However, even in Italy no one was safe from the fascists. The situation for Jews and emigrants was getting worse. When Italy changed sides in September 1943 and was occupied by the Wehrmacht, there were raids and subsequent deportations to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

The Nazi regime was also in power.

Rudolf Levy was repeatedly plagued by gout attacks during this time, his health suffered. At the end of 1942, his health became worse and worse. He was repeatedly plagued by gout attacks. But Levy felt at ease in Florence. When a letter from his brother in February 1943 failed to reach him at his home address and returned with the reference "recipient unknown" and "Jew," he can only guess that his brother Paul Levy had either already been deported or had fled unnoticed by that time. Even after Florence was placed under German military administration and the Allies attacked the city, Levy remained there and, against the advice of his friends, repeatedly showed himself in public.

One day Rudolf Levy was ambushed: Gestapo officers disguised as art dealers arrested him in Florence on December 12, 1943, in front of his boarding house and took the 68-year-old to Murate police prison, from where he was still sending Christmas greetings to his boarding house landlady His possessions were also then confiscated. At least some of his paintings could be saved by an art dealer. For one month, Levy, who was in poor health, was part of a deportation train of Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz - he presumably died during the transport. His sister Käthe emigrated to Israel shortly after Hitler came to power. Rudolf's brother Paul, who had worked as a civil engineer for the Reichsbahn in Hamburg, was killed with his wife in Auschwitz in 1943.