Rudolf Belling (1886 Berlin - 1972 Munich) "Portrait of Alfred Flechtheim". Original title Bronze, dark patina. Signed and dated. 1927 The sculptor Rudolf Belling is one of the great dogma-breakers in 20th century art, who also liberated art from tradition and convention in the field of sculpture and catapulted it into the modern age. This is also evident in this bronze. As early as 1923, Belling had disassembled a head into its individual components, reduced it to basic geometric shapes and then reassembled it in his epochal futuristic "Sculpture 23". In his 1927 portrait of the important gallery owner Alfred Flechtheim, he took omission to the extreme by reducing the depiction to those parts of the face that capture his prominent features in a pointedly exaggerated manner: a pronounced hooked nose, heavy eyelids and bulging lips. Belling began to create cubist-expressive sculptures in 1912. He was influenced by Futurist and Constructivist ideas, in particular by his friend Alexander Archipenko. In December 1918, Belling was a co-founder of the progressive artists' association "Novembergruppe". A highlight of his artistic work is his bronze sculpture "Dreiklang" (Triad), in which he expressed ideas of a unification of art forms (painting, sculpture, architecture). It was created in 1919, when the Bauhaus was also founded with similar principles. In 1924, Ludwig Justi organised a solo exhibition at the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin, from which the Nationalgalerie Berlin also acquired the "Dreiklang". During the Weimar Republic, the Flechtheim Gallery showed Belling's works in several group exhibitions. In 1931, Belling was appointed to the Prussian Academy of Arts. However, Belling came under increasing pressure during the "Third Reich" and emigrated to Turkey in January 1937, where he lived, worked and taught until 1965/66. His works were destroyed and confiscated by the National Socialists and defamed in the defamatory propaganda exhibition "Degenerate Art". H. 18.3 cm. Further examples can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Busch-Reisinger-Museum in Cambridge/Mass and the Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, among others. Dark patinated bronze, 1927. signed and dated.