Erna Halleur, a Berlin mysterie.

Erna Halleur

Born 1860/85 - died Berlin 1940.

German painter and printmaker.

One of the loveliest printmakers in my "Early German Women Printmakers Index" (and ongoing project) is Erna Halleur. She is also one of the most obscured (or is it obscure ?)

This lovely bouquet, new to me, recently surfaced and was acquired by American reader Michelle who's send me a picture for sharing. A fine opportunity for this posting and to try solving the mysteries around Erna Halleur by asking the help of readers for information. 

Erna's year of death is found in the archives of the Berlin Women Artists Association founded in 1865: “Künstlerin tätig in Berlin, gest. 1940 ebenda”, working in Berlin, a member for 27 years from 1913-1940 and vice-secretary in 1916 and no records, no exhibitions, no traces in the Academy, not mentioned  by friends or colleagues  ? 

She seems to have been exclusively busy with flower pieces (I like flower prints) and my guess, working in Berlin since 1916, she is in someway related/acquainted with Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). Like printmaker and colleague Else von Schmiedeberg-Blume (1876-) who confessed "being inspired" by Corinth's flower paintings. And of course with Emil Orlik (1870-1932). All three of them taught in Berlin for many years.      

Although Erna is not mentioned in any of the Artist Lexicons to day she has a select group of international admirers and connoisseur considering the always high prices her prints fetch in auctions. From America to Taiwan, from Germany to Cornwall. My "Snow Drops" however is lovely, but it's the only color etching I know or have ever seen by her. Swapping it for one of her block prints, more befitting my personal aim of collecting, is an option.

It took me a while but I found Erna in a 1935 census living in the (Schöneberg  area) Motz-strasse 63: “Erna Halleur, Mahlerin und Grafikerin”, painter and graphic artist. There are only two other Halleurs living in Berlin in 1935: Ida Halleur a “Rentiere” (living from a pension) in the Augsburgerstrasse 23 also in quarter Schöneberg and Jean Halleur in the Stubenrauchstrasse 44 which is in the adjacent Friedenau quarter. He was a “Kanzler”, a position meaning either a high official in a consulate, or a  diocese or as a university secretary/director. 

Reader and follower "Archimandrill" (see comments) additionally has send this nice example below from a British 2004 online auction catalogue.

Physalis and Meissen porcelain statue group (47 x 49 cm.   

I have examples of half a dozen water colors, all flowers, by Erna but because this has become a rather lengthy posting I've left those out of this article) 

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Motzstrasse - Nollendorfplatz
(Schöneberg-Berlin)  

The Motz-strasse and nearby Nollendorfplatz and Bahnhof (Square and Metrostation) in the the 1920’s were in a swinging, artistic and liberal quarter of Berlin, the home of writers, painters, artists, jews and the place to be for homosexuals (male/female). Around two corners (a block) away was the drawing school of the Womens Artist Association. 

Lesser Ury: Nollendorferplatz-Motzstrasse

Leo Lesser Ury (1861-1931), the impressionist frequently painted the streets in this area of Berlin. 

On the same address Motz-Street 63 in 1929 lived the family of Dr. Julius Lewin renting rooms in 1929 to Jewish American journalist and writer Shepard Stone (Cohen) (1908-1990) who came to study in Berlin. Read her* especially the Weimar Student part.

Just a few buildings away at Nr. 78 was Hotel Koschel (now Hotel  Sachsenhof) where painter Oscar Kokoschka (1886-1980) stayed and writer Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) who has a school named after her in the same street. 

Pariser Platz, Oskar Kokoschka

Across the street at nr. 82 lived Jewish (art) doll maker Else Hecht-Grossman (1884 - deported and murdered in Riga 1942). She was member of the Munich Art Doll Group. Erna and Else could easily have bumped in to each other or have met at the grocers. The German "Hecht", by the way translates Pike explaining the label. 

Nollendorfplatz 

Max Beckman (1884-1950)

Schönheitsabend in der Motzstrasse 1918

George Grosz (1893-1959). 

Nollendorfplatz

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) 

Here are some more names of important figures who walked the streets with Erna Halleur in this artistic quarter of Berlin: Berthold Brecht, Vladimir Nabokov, Ernst Bloch, Rudolf Steiner, Alfred Döblin. 

And this is what was left in 1946: ruins and rubble. 
Erna's world vanished from the planet. 

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Most German Halleur namesakes seem to originate from the city of Schwerin in Province Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, some 100 km. east of Hamburg. The name also spelled as Halleer, Hallier etc..)

(Gustav Carl) Hermann Halleur, probably the most interesting member, was also born in Schwerin in 1818. In 1854 he published a very early and iconic text book on photography, describing how to create lasting impressions using all sorts of material from nature (auto-photography, very interesting stuff). 

Researching him a bit on a rainy day I found Hermann in an earlier life had also been a doctor and a missionary visiting West Africa and Jamaica and writing a book about the life and treatment of negroes in West Africa concerning slavery. He was chosen to travel with the explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). 

Halleur remarried his second wife (the daughter of a British Major “Honntybon”) on the Ilse of St. Helena. I could find no family name anywhere near “Honntybon”, but there was an Irish Major Poppleton (..) on St. Helena …….: garding Napoleon Bonaparte in his exile (1815-1821). It also could well be "the Honn........ so and so", later German translators missing the point ?  

G.C. Hermann Halleur was also involved in the founding of the University of Calcutta in India.  Returned to Germany he left Berlin in 1851 and was awarded a directorship with a grant from the German King to lead the newly founded Arts and Craft school in Bochum near Essen. An artistic  link or a clue to Erna or is it wishful thinking ?

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

All information on Erna Halleur is warmly welcomed !

Max Pollak: portraits of Albert M. Bender and Monroe Emanuel Deutsch identified.

Albert M. Bender
 (1866-1941)

was also known as "the best known Jew in San Francisco" in the 1930's, he was the leading patron of the Arts in San Francisco in the 1920-30's. Born in Dublin as the son of Rabbi Philip and Augusta Bender, both from Germany he'd  emigrated to the US in 1881 made his fortune as an insurance broker. With his wealth he helped launch the career of many artists including Ansel Adams (and probably also Max Pollak). He had a significant impact on the cultural development of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. 

Dr. Leon Kolb

(1890 -  )

was born in Vietnam in 1890, studied medicine and settled in San Francisco in 1937. He worked as a Professor of Pharmacology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and he wrote several novels. However, his great passion, which he shared with his wife Hilda, was prints by artists well known and unknown from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. The Kolbs collected thousands of prints by print masters such as Francesco Bartolozzi, Albrecht Durer, Martin Engelbrecht, Jan Wierix, William Hogarth, Anthony van Dyck, Lucan van Leyden, Bernard Picart, and Martin de Vos.

Monroe E. Deutsch

 (1879-1955) 

Monroe Emanuel Deutsch, professor of classics and Vice-President and provost of the University of California, was born in 1879 of a Jewish family in San Francisco. An excellent student, he graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco, and then worked his way through the University of California, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1902 and his Master's Degree in 1903. He first taught for a year in the Mission High School in San Francisco, and later in the Berkeley High School where he remained until 1907, when he became an assistant in Greek at the University of California and worked for his doctorate. This he received in 1911. He attained full professorship in Latin in 1922.

Pollak and his wife Friedl moved to San Francisco in 1938.

Within 24 hours after publication reader Tom has send the solution for this portrait, thank you 

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Judge and Mrs. Max C. Shloss 

(1941) Max Schloss was a noted San Francisco judge. I could not find any biographical data.

Max Pollak and his wife Friedl moved to San Francisco in 1938. Most, maybe all portraits I've found so far all seem to be of persons of German origin, even those created after emigrating in 1926 to America and before: the Vienna portraits. It seems to me all Pollaks portraits are of Jewish people. Remarkable.    

These last portraits were found in the database of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums and shared here for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

Max Pollak: Vienna portraits.

Max Pollak

(Prag 1886-1970 San Francisco)

Austrian-American painter and etcher.

Palermo

I'm a great admirer of Max Pollak. To admire one does not have to actually own a work: I don't. But wouldn't I ? I'm always on the look out. His technique (aquatint, soft ground etching) to create atmosphere in his city views of New-York, San Francisco, Paris, Vienna etc.. with "simple" washes of gray or light purple coloring is quite unique.   

But it is the sparse and delicate use of just a few "Japanese" color accents, a detail used in all his city- and landscapes making him immediately recognizable. I wonder how he came to it: Emil Orlik's influence perhaps ? In America he's probably best known by his New-York Views, commissioned by Theodor Dreiser's for his limited edition "My City" in 1929. The Annex Gallery recently announced their newest in stock here* : many city views. I will show more of those later. Pollak had only arrived in New-York two years before. 

This etched portrait above was simply described as "a pianist". It took me some time on a rainy day, but I've figured it out. It is concert pianist and composer Alfred Grünfeldt (Prag 1852-1924), friend of Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss sr. He was also the first pianist in history to make commercial recordings. He travelled all over Europe and the United States performing often with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Pollak and his wife Friedl emigrated to the US in 1927 being already established and successful in the 1920's in Vienna as a society (actors, writers, dancers, musicians and scientists) portrait artist. He'd been a student of the "great" William Unger (1837-1932) and Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870-1928).

Portrait of Arnold Rose (Rosenblum) (1863-1946) the legendary Wiener Philharmonie  conductor who'd led this orchestra for over 50 years. 

He married Justine, Gustav Mahler's sister, his brother marrying the other  one. Arnold Rose sat also for Ferdinand Schmutzer as did Gustav Mahler for Emil Orlik (below).   

Vienna was the home of three contemporary and successful aquatint etchers: Pollak, Luigi Kasimir (1881-1962) and Hans Figura (1898-1978). Both Kasimir and Figura (who had been Kasimir's student) travelled to New-York and it wouldn't surprise me if Pollak invited them to celebrate his succes, he had a solo exhibition in New York in 1928. Kasimir and Figura never tried at portraits by the way. (*)

 Brooklyn bridge by Luigi Kasimir and by Hans Figura,  

 and by Tavik Frantisek Simon 

(*) The fourth and probably most famous aquatint and portrait etcher from Czech descent of that period was Tavik Frantisek Simon (1877-1942) but he, after working in Paris 1905-1913, had returned to Prag in 1917. 

Kasimir, famous for his city-views had also been a William Unger student at Vienna Art Academy (as was printmaker Norbertine von Bresslern-Roth (1891-1978). 

Portrait of Emil (von) Sauer (1862-1942), he was knighted in 1917, a famous Vienna concert pianist and had been a student of Anton Rubinstein and Franz Lizst. 

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Vienna neurologist and psychiater, portrait  by Max Pollak,

and portraits by Ferdinand Schmutzer, who was also a keen photographer using his negatives in his etchings work as I mentioned in before postings (follow the link below). 

This posting is what I was able to scratch together concerning Max Pollak's Vienna portrait etchings. Sadly a few are "hidden" and can not be digitally revealed (by me). 

After settling in America Pollak almost exclusively turned his attention to city views and landscapes. Before, he'd travelled through Europe and sketched extensively as he did later in South America when he lived in San Francisco. 

A young Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) also played with the Vienna Philharmonic in America, from 1926/27. 

Until his departure in 1927 together with Ferdinand Schmutzer and Emil Orlik these three etchers seem to have portrayed and etched many of  Austria's  celebrities, the rich and famous, of the 1920's. 

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Portraits of unidentified persons.
(Wouldn't it be great to identify them).

Portrait of M..?... Deutsch.
(See next posting for identifcation)

Portrait of "a man". Probably in his 70's in the mid 1920's.

I would like very much to identify these two persons above, any clues or help is welcomed. Also portraits that I've missed of course. My email in the link above.

a "Dutch Study"

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

Doris von Mohl, another forgotten printmaker.

Mohl, Doris von 

(later Doris Herrmann) 

(Neustadt/Orla 1894-1959 Neustadt/Orla) 

another forgotten German printmaker   

Ebay besides being an auction site also is like a shore line washing up forgotten and obscured artist like Doris von Mohl, a recent new to me name in my German women printmakers (born before 1900) Index (160 names). For the occasion I share my her newly composed short-biography ("Kurz-biografie"). Like many of her artistic printmaking sisters she has a (very) well-to-do background. Only these three prints shown here are known to me. I'll bet, while studying in Berlin with Lovis Corinth (see below) she was a student of  Emil Orlik (below) too.   

Born in Neustadt an der Orla (50 miles south of Leipzig) she grew up in Cairo (Egypt) from 1897 until 1909 as the daughter of Ottmar von Mohl (1846-1922) a diplomat recruited by the Meiji period Japanese Government (1868-1912) as a foreign adviser from 1887 to 1889. She had an older brother Waldemar von Mohl (1885-1966), a lawyer.

Von Mohl and his wife, Wanda countesse van der Groetsen serving with the Japanese Imperial Household Ministry in Tokyo to introduce European Court ceremonials to Japanese Emperor Meiji and his court.  He was stationed in Cincinatti Ohio (USA) in 1879, as a consul in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1885 and in Cairo (1887-1917).

Her Grandfather Robert von Mohl (1794-1875) was  a professor of political sciences and an ambassador to the royal court.

Doris studied with Heinrich Knirr(*) (1862-1944) in his private painting school in 1916/17 in Munich, later at the Bauhaus school in Weimar and with Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) in Berlin-Charlottenburg. She started her career exhibiting in 1918 in her native Neustadt, lived and worked from 1934 in Arnshaugk (Neustadt/Orla). She married painter and sculptor Karl Herrmann (1893–1962) in 1920.

Castle Arnshaugk is the von Mohl family seat. Tthe family brought forth many influential and high placed intellectuals, officials, military and scientists.

(*) Heinrich Knirr also taught at Munich Fine Art Academy from 1898-1910 and besides Paul Klee (1879-1940) he'd also taught Emil Orlik (1870-1932).  

All pictures borrowed from the Internet fror friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

Paul Berger Bergner: Dore Hoyer

Paul Berger Bergner

(Prag 10-02-1904 - 18-07-1978 Mannheim 

German expressionist painter, etcher and printmaker 

Reader Archimandrill (again) solved the mystery printmaker in before posting. Thank you ! Here are some of the things I've assembled trying to understand the times, people and circles to place Steven's woodcut portrait of Dore Hoyer. 

Paul Berger Bergner was born in Prag as son of Paul Bergner and his wife Maria Tadler. Paul sr. was a restaurator and later the museum director of the Rudolfinum the famous Museum building, Concert Hall and House of Parliament from 1918-1939 in Prag overlooking river Moldau. 

When his father died young Paul Jr. went to study in the painting studio of the  porcelain factory in Schlackenwirth near Karlsbad (Karlovi Vary) and later with Walter Klemm (1883-1957). Klemm had started with his friend Carl Thiemann (1881-1966) a studio in Prag in 1908. Both men were born in Karlsbad by the way. Klemm had been taught by Emil Orlik (1870-1932) and later in Vienna by Kolo Moser (1868-1918). He was appointed professor in Berlin in 1910.

In 1925 Paul entered the Art Academy in Dresden (connection with Dore Hoyer ) to study with painter Robert Sterl (1867-1932). His studio and most of his work was lost in the anglo-american destruction of Dresden in 1945. The same faith struck his friend artist printmaker Maj Hemberg (1906-1992).

After the war he moved to Mannheim and became a painting teacher at Mannheim "Fach-hochschule" to become its director in 1957. He had a relationship with Thea Piekara and they had a son Paul who was born in 1939. 

Paul Berger Bergner's etched portrait of Josef Paul Hodin (Prag 1905 - 1995 London) a famous aesthete and art critic (Tate Museum) who'd fled to London in 1944. Hodin was about the same age as Paul and also born in Prag. 

Portraits of Josef Hodin by Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) from a Prag family and who'd recovered in Dresden meeting expressionist circles after WW1 (left) and Ulli Nimptsch RA (1897-1977) (right) a German sculptor-painter who'd emigrated to London before WW2. He'd studied in Berlin Arts and Craft School for applied arts in Berlin 1915-1917. 

This posting now becoming a "who is who" in Expressionism: Nimptsch by Kokoschka.

And a book by Josef Paul Hodin on Paul Berger-Bergner  

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.