Ernesto de Fiori

[1] A dazzling personality himself, he rose to fame as a society portraitist and a major protagonist of Berlin's vivid art scene during the Weimar Republic.

Back in Munich a long-term friendship developed with writer Carl Sternheim and his wife Thea who admired and supported the young artist in his formative years.

De Fiori portrayed film divas Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, boxing champion Jack Dempsey and field marshal Paul von Hindenburg among many others.

When Flechtheim was exposed to the racist agitation of the National Socialists in the early 1930s and was forced to emigrate after the Nazi's "seizure of control", de Fiori's star also began to decline.

Bardi curated a large retrospective for the Hoepli Gallery in 1950[3] and included works of the artist in the collection of the São Paulo Museum of Art of which he was the Founding Director.

Throughout his life, Ernesto de Fiori, who considered himself a cosmopolitan European and was self-taught as a sculptor, denied any affiliations to groups, schools and -isms.

Alfred Kuhn, a German art historian who analyzed De Fiori’s development as early as 1922, considered Aristide Maillol the most impactful influence on the artist.

[9] In the mid 1920s, the artist had cautiously approached the Novecento Italiano and even participated in the group’s first exhibition in 1926,[10] but subsequently rejected all attempts of appropriation, on one occasion notably at the instigation of his Berlin mentor Alfred Flechtheim.

[11] If Italian influences were decisive for de Fiori's development, they seem difficult to verify, since the artist never stayed long in Italy in his adult life.