Karl Hofer

Private Collection, New York (probably acquired directly from the artist)
Thence by decent

New York, Nierendorf Gallery, 1937
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, The (35th) 1937 International Exhibition of Paintings, 1937, no. 351
Columbus, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Modern German Painting, 1938, no. 23

Martha Davidson, "Critique of the Carnegie" in The Art News, vol. 36, October 16, 1937, illustrated p. 8 (dated 1936)
Martha Davidson, "Hofer, an important German artist invades a French season" in The Art News, vol. 36, November 27, 1937, p. 13
Martha Davidson, "One Man Show of the Carnegie First Prize Winner: Karl Hofer" in The Art News, vol. 37, November 26, 1938, p. 12 
Karl Bernhard Wohlert & Markus Eisenbeis, Karl Hofer, Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, vol. II, Cologne, 2007, no. 1320, illustrated p. 251

The canvas is lined. UV light: there is a 4" x 4" L shaped restoration in the upper right quadrant, indicating a repaired tear, otherwise fine. The work is in generally good condition.
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Painted in 1937, in a rapidly militarizing Berlin on the brink of returning to war, Mann mit Spiegel is a superb example of Hofer's singular and provocative contribution to Expressionist portraiture, bearing testament to a bohemian subculture that thrived in that city during these tragically brief years of nonviolence. As Sabine Rewald writes, the members of this generation of artists “were marked for life by war. Burnt out and disillusioned, they had been to hell and back and looked at their surroundings and their countrymen with new eyes—somberly, sometimes cynically and even ferociously... The Verists painted the demimonde, individuals on the margins of society, as well as the professional class. Thus, there are pictures of unknown lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and also profiteers, art dealers, and mostly forgotten poets and writers... We see emancipated women in nightclubs, lesbians, effeminate homosexuals, cocaine-addicted performers, anonymous cripples and prostitues, and among the members of the demimonde, a number of aristocrats” (Sabine Rewald, “I must paint you!” in Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006, pp. 3-4).