CALIFORNIA ART CLUB NEWSLETTER Documenting California’S Traditional Arts Heritage for More Than 100 Years
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YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY CALIFORNIA ART CLUB NEWSLETTER Documenting California’s Traditional Arts Heritage for More Than 100 Years Jean Mannheim (1861-1945): Cultivating Colour and Versatility in California by Richard W. Reitzell he early twentieth century was an incredibly dynamic period Tfor California and in particular, for southern California and Los Angeles. The allure of a mild climate, the beauty of the Golden State, and the search for new opportunities led to an influx of innovative artists, many already well-established and respected in the East and Midwest. Inspired by their new and pristine surroundings these academically-trained artists would give rise to the regional art movement that would become known as California Plein Air or California Impressionism. Among these artists was the German-born Jean Mannheim who arrived in Los Angeles in 1908. Like many artists who settled in southern California, it didn’t take long for the colourful and diverse environs to attract Mannheim’s brush. In 1911 Everett C. Maxwell, Director of the Museum of History, Science and Art in Los Angeles, commented in The Graphic that Mannheim “is essentially a figure painter and that in this all-too- sparsely populated field of art his great future lies wide and golden before him. However, since Mr. Mannheim’s arrival in the land of a thousand wonders, the silent call of the eternal hills has lured him forth to interpret their message of truth and beauty through the medium of his brilliant brush…his landscape The Fairy Tale, c. 1910 renderings, strong, virile marvels of Oil on canvas 390 3 340 technical dexterity, rare in color and Private Collection marvelously decorative.” Few California artists tackled as many subjects, from marines to desertscapes, critic Antony Anderson differentiated varied subjects as Jean Mannheim. harbour and industrial scenes, to between painters who were true to a Known first as a skilled painter of casual mountains, valleys, streams, gardens, single genre or style and those who, and formal portraits and genre scenes, and still lifes. In a 1916 Los Angeles Times like Mannheim, captured a wide he ranged beyond to paint a wealth of article “From a Versatile Brush,” art range of subjects. Anderson described california art club www.californiaartclub.org fall 2011 YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 2 1891 and 1902 Mannheim studied at In 1902 Mannheim returned to the Académie Julian, the Académie America settling in Denver. He married Colarossi, and L’École Delecluse under Eunice Drennan, a former student such prominent instructors as William and model. They had two daughters, Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), Paul Jeanne and Eunie, and remained in Delance (1848–1924), and Rodolphe Denver for five years, where Jean taught Julian (1839–1907). at the Denver Art School and the In Decatur, Mannheim’s portrait Woman’s Club. He painted portraits business grew into a successful career in the winter, while in the summer and he became an integral figure in the months he travelled into the mountains city at large as well as within the artistic on sketching expeditions. In 1907 the community. In addition, he developed family moved back to Europe and for strong ties with the local media, which, several years he worked closely with in various “Around the Town” and the internationally renowned muralist “Scraps of News” columns, frequently Frank Brangwyn (1867–1956) at the announced the progress of the artist’s London School of Art. However the portraits of local citizens. cold, damp English weather was difficult Mannheim’s visible talent, engaging on his wife’s health and seeking a Self-Portrait, c. 1935 personality, strong German accent, better climate, they moved to southern Oil on masonite 240 3 200 interesting tales of life abroad, combined California in the fall of 1908 and built Collection of Richard and Lynn Reitzell with some slight eccentricities, their home on the bluff of Pasadena’s seemed to match well with the town’s Arroyo Seco. Mannheim as “one of the most versatile developing expectations of what a Mannheim lost no time in entering of our Los Angeles painters” and noted successful artist should be like. His art the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene. that, “impelled by his artistic curiosity, schools thrived as he supplemented his In 1909 he established a studio in the Mannheim has not hesitated to paint teaching with Paris-style innovations Blanchard Building on Broadway anything that looked paintable to him, such as live models and annual student Street in downtown L.A., where he held and the result is that his technique has exhibitions. In addition, Mannheim his first exhibition. Later that year he become remarkably sure and fluent, had the unique distinction as an artist became a Gold Medal recipient at the besides being marked with a splendid to have had a tavern named after him. vigor.” This unusual honour occurred after Jean Mannheim, the third of six a local proprietor, hoping to attract a children, was born on November 18, “classier” clientele, replaced the former 1861 in Bad Kreuznach in what is today common risqué saloon painting with a a wine-growing region in western number of Mannheim’s refined genre Germany. His father, also Jean, was works. Pleased with the result, the tavern German and worked as a clothes dyer keeper renamed the establishment “The by trade. His mother, Gertrude, was of Mannheim,” a name it carried for several French-Alsatian descent. Mannheim’s decades. father taught him to draw at a young age and the artist would later fondly recall he Americans who lived in long walks with his father, who with Paris during the last decade of the the eye of a dye-maker, would point out Tnineteenth century experienced an the many colours of nature, strong and incredibly dynamic art and teaching subtle around them. After apprenticing environment. A favourite lecture topic at a bookbindery, Mannheim left home of Mannheim’s was student life in Paris. at seventeen and travelled throughout He would note that “composition and Germany plying his trade by day, while drawing, which had heretofore been attending evening art classes and stressed so forcibly, was now a secondary painting portraits of anyone who would consideration. Everything was colour.” pose for him. He often concluded that “When I In 1883 at the age of twenty-one Jean first went to Paris, the impressionists Mannheim left Europe for America. were painting with big dots of colour. After settling in Chicago he travelled Two years later I went back, and the through central Illinois earning income pointillists were painting with little along the way by teaching art. He then dots. Then came the post-impressionism, made three extended stays in Decatur, cubism, and other extremes. Finally Study in Sunlight, c. 1908 Illinois interspersed with four trips to I thought, ‘Well, nuts. I guess I’ll just Oil on board 270 3 180 Paris for further art studies. Between paint.’” Private Collection california art club www.californiaartclub.org fall 2011 YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 3 CALIFORNIA ART CLUB NEWSLETTER Fall 2011 Contents Cover Jean Mannheim (1861–1945): Cultivating Colour and Versatility in California by Richard W. Reitzell 7 Pam Powell: Painter of Modern-Day Genre by Molly Siple 10 The Artist as Critic: Art that Inspires —An Interview with Ignat Ignatov Discussing his Morrocan Friends and Jean- Léon Gérôme’s (1824–1904) Pelt Merchant of Cairo Arroyo Garden by Stephanie Campbell Oil on canvas 200 3 240 12 Membership Programs and Private Collection Events Courtesy of George Stern Fine Arts 13 Collectors’ Circle Corner 1909 Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition Jean Mannheim and fellow German 14 Corporate 100 held in Seattle, Washington. In a familiar émigré and leading artist William 15 Call for Entries pattern, Mannheim quickly developed Wendt (1865–1946) developed a his portrait business and established strong friendship that lasted nearly 15 Chapter News and Events himself through commissioned works of four decades. When Wendt received a 16 News Briefs many of Los Angeles’s leading citizens. telegram that he had been accepted as 18 Donations Sadly, as Mannheim’s career was an associate member of the prestigious ascending, his wife Eunice became National Academy of Design in 1912, 18 Museum/Gallery Exhibitions severely ill with peritonitis and died he selected his good friend Mannheim and Lectures within two days on January 24, 1910 at to paint his inaugural portrait. Though 29 Book Review the age of forty-four. Mannheim and his very different personalities, the two children were devastated, but he found shared a common love of the traditional 29 Membership News solace in focusing on his work and aspects of their craft and served the artist 31 New Members raising his daughters. community throughout their careers. His 1912 portraits of razor-blade Wendt through his organizational Advertisers founder King Gillette led the press to leadership of artists’ clubs, primarily 28 Fine Art Connoisseur boost regional pride by extolling the the California Art Club, Mannheim Magazine finished works as “taken to indicate through his lifelong interest in teaching 29 California Art Club that easterners are at least becoming and mentoring young artists. Their Membership awake to the fact that California painters duo-exhibition at the Friday Morning are the equals of those in Europe and Club in 1914 was heavily attended and, 30 Plein Air Magazine along the Atlantic Coast.” Another at the time, an innovative pairing that 30 SourceTek headline read, “California Art is rivalling was described by Antony Anderson as 30 American Legacy Fine Arts Europe and the East,” and chronicled “one of the most important shows of the that “millionaire and connoisseur year...and peculiarly interesting in that King Gillette” had purchased seven it offers us the opportunity to study and Mannheim pictures, paying “the price of compare the works of two men, both two automobiles.” eminent as technicians, yet radically california art club www.californiaartclub.org fall 2011 YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 4 King Camp Gillette, 1912 The Lady in White, c.