The Chess Match, c. 1925/30

In December 1925, Max Oppenheimer (1885–1954) moved to Berlin. His monumental painting The Orchestra (1921–1923) and portraits of musicians had brought him international success, so he felt it was time to leave “slow-paced” Vienna for the art metropolis in the 1920s. Oppenheimer combined New Objectivity with Cubist elements. Almost every day he met his friends at the renowned Romanisches Café to discuss “art and art bureaucracy.” Newspaper reports kept the friends up to date on the latest news; black coffee and cigarettes were indispensable accessories for these intellectual night owls. Oppenheimer, who called himself MOPP and signed his pictures that way too, captured the spirit of the 1920s—not with dancing couples or swinging jazz musicians, but by concentrating on hands.

AM, 2019