Der Neue Mensch

[1] He decided to become an artist and moved to Paris in 1908, but he made the sculpture in Hamburg in 1912 during one of his periodic trips back to Germany.

Freundlich was influenced by Cubism and possibly also Rodin's 1890s bronze sculpture, Monumental Head of Iris, as well as "primitive" tribal art, like the masks in Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

It was included in the Degenerate Art Exhibition (Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst") that opened in Munich in 1937, displayed in the ground floor lobby with a wooden work, Der Schmied von Hagen, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

It was featured on the cover of the catalogue for the exhibition,[1] which was published in November 1937 and sold for 30 pfennigs, and also included in "Group 8" in the guide, alongside works by two other Jewish artists, a self portrait by Ludwig Meidner and a sculpture by Richard Haizmann [de].

At the start of the Second World War in 1939, he was interned by the French government as an enemy alien, but released in 1940 at the request of Picasso.