The Actor Emil Jannings

In May 1929 Emil Jannings became the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for two Hollywood silent films. Sound pictures were arriving at the same moment, and his heavy German accent ended his American career, so he went back to Germany. In 1930 he played the schoolmaster ruined by a cabaret singer in The Blue Angel, a film in which his co-star Marlene Dietrich overshadowed him. Oppenheimer painted him in 1932, as a big, heavy head that fills most of the canvas. The face is built from thick, broken strokes of pink, ochre and brown, with a furrowed brow and one eyelid drooping low. The collar, tie and coat are only sketched in grey and blue, with bare canvas showing through at the edges.