?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
ADOLPHE FÉDER Still Life with Kettle.
Oil on canvas, circa 1908. 347x272mm; 13 3/4x10 3/4 inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Féder (1885-1943) grew up in Odessa, Ukraine, where he became deeply involved in the Bund Labor Movement, a secular Jewish socialist party. Because of his involvement with the Bund and rising unrest in Russia, he was forced to flee to Berlin in 1904. He moved on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Geneva, and later at the Académie Julien, Paris. Féder flourished in Paris, becoming close friends with artists Henri Matisse, Othon Friesz and Amedeo Modigliani. He worked for French newspapers, Le Monde and La Presse, and illustrated books for Joseph Kessel and Arthur Rimbaud.
When World War II erupted and France came under the Vichy regime in collaboration with Nazi Germany, the Pétain militia arrested Féder and his wife in June 1942. They were imprisoned at Cherche-Midi military prison for four months until Féder was transferred to Drancy internment camp. Despite being interned at Drancy, Féder continued to make art, painting portraits of guards and fellow prisoners. In the winter of 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.
