Rafaello Busoni

Rafaello Busoni (born February 1, 1900 in Berlin ; † March 1962 in New York ) was a graphic artist, draftsman, painter and illustrator of theater and opera literature, books for young people and the author of several books.

Life

His parents were the Italian musician and composer Ferruccio Busoni and Gerda Sjöstrand, the daughter of a Swedish sculptor.

Busoni was self-taught in his artistic career. He received brief instructions from the Swiss painter Eduard Stiefel (life drawing) and in etching and printing from the Hungarian etcher Ricardo Hadel.

In 1917, the first public exhibition of Busoni's works took place in the Tanner Gallery in Zurich. A five-year stay in Switzerland is to be seen as the basis of his artistry. After studying art in Switzerland, he worked in Paris and Berlin, where he earned his reputation as an illustrator. Busoni married the Japanese Hide; their daughter Kiki was born in 1927. Hide died of tuberculosis in 1930 after unsuccessful treatment in Switzerland.

The second marriage was Busoni with Hannah, daughter of the lawyer Alfred Apfel , who had defended Carl von Ossietzky in the Weltbühne trial . Hannah, who had been friends with the family for many years, had been Hide's piano student herself. In January 1935, the couple emigrated to Madeira with Kiki and lived there until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Then they returned to Berlin. Their son Mario was born in November 1938.

Since one could not stay in Germany because of Hannah's Jewish origins, Busoni decided to move with his family to Sweden, his mother's homeland, assuming that they would ultimately be safe here. However, after only six months, the Busonis were forced to leave again. In October 1939 they took a ship to New York in Norway. Busoni continued his life as a painter and illustrator here until his death in 1962.

Busoni illustrated numerous classic works of youth and adventure literature such as Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer, David Copperfield, Robin Hood .

Works (selection)

Illustrations

• Themes of the Biblical Orient (Song of Songs, The Ten Plagues)
• EA Poe's Tale (The Raven)
• Georg Büchner (Woyzeck)
• RM Rilke (sage of love and death of the cornet)
• Verdi (Rigoletto)
• R. Busoni ( America , portfolio on the development history of the New Continent, published by Atlantic-Buchhandlung, Berlin)
• G. Flaubert (Three Stories)
• Charles Dickens: David Copperfield. Potsdam 1938 (Flechtmann No. 56)
• Herti Kirchner: Who wants to be among the Indians. Potsdam 1938 (Flechtmann No. 57)
• Robert Louis Stevenson: The Adventures of David Balfour. Potsdam 1939 (Flechtmann No. 63)
• Mark Twain : The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1940; Flechtmann No. 65)

Books

• America; 12 etchings, A. Rogall, Berlin 1924
• The man who was Don Quixote; the story of Miguel Cervantes
• Australia, Holiday House, New York 1942
• Mexico and the Inca lands
• Arlecchino: a theatrical capriccio, Ferruccio Busoni a. Rafaello Busoni, Berlin, 1932 (on Arlecchino or Die Fenster ).
• Stanley in Africa, Gutenberg Book Guild, Zurich 1949
• Rafaello Busoni, Rafaello Busoni Papers 1942-1959.

literature

• Alfred Apfel : "My dear little animal ... With deep love, Your Alfred": Letters & cards to his daughter Hannah Busoni . Edited and edited by Heinrich Schwing. Singen-Bohlingen: cbed. 2014
• Zlata Fuss Phillips: German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile, 1933-1950. Biographies and Bibliographies , Munich 2001, ISBN 3-598-11569-5 (has a directory with 66 titles)
• Alfred Jürgens: Rafaello Busoni , in: Westermanns Monatshefte , 27th year, May 1928, p. 273 ff
• Frank Flechtmann: The Williams & Co. Verlag, Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1997 (with a bibliography from 1925)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Papers of Hannah Busoni . Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History. Retrieved July 5, 2019

Web links

• List of his illustrations
• Letter from Ferruccio Busoni to his son Rafaello (1917)
• Biography on zeno.org
• Photography: Rafaello Busoni paints his daughter Kiki, 1933 .