Thursday 9 August 2018

Deja Vu....solved: Ernst Pickardt



Finding the complete text of a 1924 graphics catalogue resulted in solving this mystery signature in this print found recently see posting of May 25th. Thank you Wolfgang. The artist is Berlin Jewish painter an etcher:
Ernst Max Pickardt 
(Berlin 1876 - 1931 Berlin) 

I shall not reveal all biographic details here (that is for the book) but although largely forgotten today he was represented in that catalogue with some 50 etchings mainly of German composers and Poets and Italian views, obviously after an extensive trip. I would very much like to know more about his parents Hermann Pickardt (dates unknown, he had a brother Julius Pickardt also in the beer trade. Julius' name is frequently mentioned, but probably as anti-semitic propaganda, in relation to the "Dividend-beer fraud & scandals" in the 1870-80's (after the Berlin stock market collapsed in 1873) and his mother Dorothea Heimann (dates unknown). She may be however identical with Doris Pickardt-Hermann, daughter of Berlin rabbi and printer Hermann Samuel Hermann (1810-1889) and Jeanette Freund. In that case Ernst has 5 more brothers and 2 sisters. As a biographer I would like to know about all 19th century Berlin Pickardt family members, there weren't that many and they seem all related, James, Wilhelm, Max, Felix etc... 

Dorothea Heimann was Hermanns second wife, married around 1875. His first wife (dates and name unknown) died (aged 28) when their apartment at Oranienstrasse 52 collapsed due to unprofessional building activities in 1871. Their child (daughter) survived the crash. Revealed in 1871 newspapers and minutes of the 1872 criminal investigations to the cause leading to 3 fatalities.  


The Boulevard Montmartre view however is from his trip to Paris in 1928 and clearly a tribute to the impressionists Camille Pissaro and Gustave Caillebotte who kind of "invented" the boulevard view from a balcony from his posh Boulevard Hausmann residence.

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Ernst's father Hermann was in the Berlin beer trade and he himself married 1917 the daughter of an heir of two Berlin fortunes (great-grandfathers): the Jewish jeweller to the imperial crown Zadig Freidländer (1801-1861) and Jewish king of textile Valentin Mannheimer (1815-1889): 

Leonie Martha Lehfeld (Berlin 1892-1964 Berlin) is said to have been "Kleinplastikerein" a sculptrice or ceramist creating figurines. Sadly she is not mentioned in any of the artist lexicons. She was the daughter of lawyer Dr. Robert Lehfeld (b. Breslau 1857) and Bertha Friedlander (b. Berlin 1869). The Friendländer-Manheimer Berlin ancestry is clear but I would very much like to know more about this Lehfeld family too.   

All information welcomed.   

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