Description

Rafaello Busoni (Berlin,1900-New York,1962)

Rafaello Busoni : Abraham Lincoln (nach einem Porträt der Zeit)

Original etching

This is etching number 10 from the Portfolio entitled Amerika composed of 12 etchings, produced in 1924.

Nice proof on japanese paper applied on vellum from the Portfolio numbered 6a. This Portfolio is initially not intended for sale. It is numbered and signed in pencil by the artist. 10 copies of the Portfolio are produced numbered 1a to 10a from which is our exemplary. An edition of 100 copies of the Portfolio is produced for the trade by the publishing house Atlantic Buchhandlung.

Dimensions of the sheet: H. 275 mm x W. 152 mm – Dimensions of the subject: H. 200 mm x W. 116 mm.

Rafaello Busoni, artist and engraver is the son of the Italian musician and composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) and Gerda Sjöstrand, the daughter of a Swedish sculptor.
After completing his artistic training in Switzerland, he worked in Paris and Berlin. There he acquired a reputation as an illustrator. After a first marriage to the Japanese Hide, Busoni married a second time to Hannah, daughter of the famous lawyer Dr. Alfred Apfel. Apfel had defended Carl von Ossietzky in the Weltbühne trial. With the onset of war, the couple’s life becomes complicated. As it was not possible to stay in Germany because of Hannah’s Jewish origin, Busoni decided to move with his family. They fled Nazi Germany and took a boat in Norway in October 1939 for New York. Busoni continued his life as a painter and illustrator there until his death in 1962.