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    Artist

  • Busyn, Max, 1899-1976

    • Title

  • Portrait of Spinoza

  • Physical Description

    Drawing : charcoal on grey paper ; 2.6" x 3.1" (6.5 x 8 cm.)

  • Date

    1932

  • Summary

    Head and shoulders of Spinoza against a background. Signed and dated in lower right.

    According to a handwritten note on the back, Spinoza’s portrait was intended to be part of a work, also depicting the philosophers Constantin Brunner and Immanuel Kant.

  • Depicted

    Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677

  • Subject

    Philosophers

  • Genre

    Portraits

  • Medium

    Drawings

  • Accession Number

  • URL

Biographical/Historical Information

Baruch Spinoza was a Jewish Dutch rationalist philosopher of the 17th century. Born in Amsterdam in 1632 into a family of Jewish emigrants from Portugal, he was trained in Talmudic scholarship, but his views soon were considered to be atheism, and at the age of 24 he was excommunicated by a rabbinical court. In his principal work “The Ethics” (published only posthumously), Spinoza expressed his view of God or Nature as being everything. Working as a lens-grinder, he died of consumption in 1677, caused by inhaling glass dust at his workbench.

Max Busyn was a Polish-Israeli painter and graphic artist. Born 1899, Lodz. Studied: 1922/23 Art Academy of Dresden. Lived in Berlin 1929-33, then emigrated to Palestine. Created murals for the Jewish seniors' home in Berlin. Busyn's works that used to be in the collection of the Jewish Museum in Berlin have been lost since WW II. Busyn was briefly influenced by Otto Dix.

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Citation

Busyn, Max: Portrait of Spinoza, Leo Baeck Institute, 80.231.