Fanny Remak, Part III, her friends: Julie Wolfthorn

Julie Wolfthorn
(born Julie Wolf(f)

(Thorn 1864 - murdered 1944 Theresiënstadt Ghetto)

German painter, celebrated portrait and grafic artist. 

Friend and colleague of Fanny Remak.
(Please help me by sending more/new information) 

Trying to unveil the obscured life and career of Fanny Remak (Thorn 1883-1970 London) today I take a look at the life and career of her friend Julie Wolfthorn. Both women worked closely together for some years in the board of the “Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen” until 1933 the Nazis made their work and eventually their life impossible.

Fanny had been a member of the VdBK since 1913, her friend Käthe Munzer (see Fanny Remak: Part II) since 1904 and Julie Wolfthorn since 1898. Fanny was elected chairwoman in 1928 and Julie joined her in the board in 1931 and they were in function until 1933. Both women sharing a Jewish and Polish (Preussian) background. Their families originating from roughly the same region although the Remaks had settled in Berlin a generation or two earlier. 

In 1933 the Jewish artists and board members were replaced by “Arien” colleagues Elisabeth von Oertzen, Helene Mass and L.E.Margarethe Gerhardt, all former board members and all three happened to be, besides painters, “Farbholzschnitt” or colour woodblock printmakers. All three appeared earlier in this Blog (follow the labels below).  

Julie Wolfthorn has recently been the artist of research by Dr. Heike Carstensen who researched, reconstructed and published Julie's biography so I'ld better not go into any detail in this humble and unscolarly posting.

In the beginning of her career as an artist Julie designed several covers for the influential and innovative Magazine "Jugend" becoming later one of the first really successful woman artist-painters in the beginning of the 20^th century Germany.

She would paint the portraits of Berlins “beau-monde”, intellectuals, doctors, feminists, writers, artists etc..  and lived for over 30 years with her sister Luise, a translator, in their house and studio in the  Kurfürstenstrasse 50, near Berlin Zoo, a continuation of the famous Kurfürstendamm and not far from Café Splendid on nr. 75 (above). She was acquainted, worked and exhibited with all great artists of her time: Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann, Franz von Stuck, Hans Hayek etc… (left, Julie in 1908) 

Kurfürstendamm 

In 1896 she was introduced to Ida and poet Richard Dehmel by her friend, poet and translator Hedwig Lachmann (1865-1918) in 1896 and was commissioned to paint the couple exhibiting the result in the "Grossen Berliner Kunstaustelling" the next year marking the beginning of her career as Germany’s foremost portrait painter. 

Hedwich Lachmann and Ida Dehmel

Ida Dehmel was the founder of the German and Austrian Women Artists Association (GEDOK). Avoiding the inevitable faith of all Jews in Nazi Germany she took her own life in 1942.   

Although once celebrated and famous, not even actively of the Jewish faith, harmless and now elderly in 1944 she was deported from her Berlin (above "Berl;inner Strasse") with her sister and transported to Theresiënstad “model”-Ghetto and perished under abominable and most inhuman conditions but never losing her dignity.  

Coming from middle class Jewish background a good or fine education for girls was quite normal and considered an obligation even. The German language needs only one (composite) word to describe it's philosophic and enlightened meaning: "Bürger-Bildingspflicht":  the obligation for any citizen or human being to educate one self and make the best out of your abilities and precious life. 

Under the wings of her grandmother Johanna Neumann-Kuehlbrandt (1816-1899) who was a writer, feminist and a poet) and had moved to Berlin maybe also to finish the education of her orphaned grandchildren and living in the Nettelbeckstrasse 7/II Julie as youngest of 5 children (like her friend Fanny Remak) was encouraged and enabled to study with the best private teachers and in the best private painting schools in Germany and abroad.

Adolph Eduard Herstein

This address later was owned by Henriette (Bock-) Neumann (see below) one of Johanna's other granddaughters returning from Poland because of better schools for her children in Berlin. Next door in the building was also the house and studio of Adolph Eduard Herstein (1869-1932) a German-Polish painter, graphic artist, teacher, and Secessionist who had an affair (and a son) with countess Fanny zu Reventlow (interesting reading here*).  

Studying in Paris Julie was accompanied by her niece Olga Fayans (1869-1954), one of Germany’s first female physicians. 

And possibly she was also accompanied in Paris by another niece, Henrietta Neumann (later married lawyer Leon Bock), who was enabled to study with Pauline Viardot-García (1821-1910) at that time probably the most famous opera singer in the world (above). Several of her nieces became opera singers, doctors, writers and artists or married one. Many also not surviving the Holocaust. Several nephews immigrated making careers in the USA.

In Paris, in the Académie Colarossi, (above) around 1890 Julie could have met Anna Klumpke (1856-1942) the American (portrait) painter and later companion of Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) the world’s 19^th century’s most successful female painter, friend of George Sand the muze of Frédéric Chopin.  (Read here*  more about the astonishing Klumpke sisters).

Anna Gerresheim (1852-1921) is mostly remembered by her Ahrenshoop artist colony background but very successful as a free creating (portrait) painter somewhat before Julie started her own career. She is probably one of the first, maybe even the first artist in Germany to have tried at color woodblock printmaking but that will have to wait to a next posting. She had been an early member of the VdBK (1884-98) exhibiting in the “Großer Berliner Kunstaustellung” from 1881. All these liberated women will have been a role model for many younger German woman artists.

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Some of Julie's close relatives:

Johanna Neumann-Kuehlbrandt (1816-1899), was her grand-mother, poet, writer and active in  women's liberation circles.

Georg Wolf (1858-1930) above, a sculptor, was her brother. Said to have created a sculpture of two of his nieces (Marianne and Leonora, Olga Hempels daughters) in Tiergarten Berlin: but where is it ?

Luise Wolf (1860-1944 murdered Theresiënstadt), translator, was her sister.

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Henrietta Bock-Neumann (1865-1942 murdered Theresiënstadt), opera singer and translater, was her niece. 

Meta Neumann (1859-1943 murdered Theresiënstadt) well known singer, was her niece.

Dr. Olga Hempel-Fajans (1869-1954), one of Germany’s first doctors, was her niece.

Mina Arndt (1885-1926) important New-Zealand painter, was her niece (their grandmothers were sisters). She studied in England, Wales and Berlin (with Franz von Stuck and Max Liebermann) and visited, of course, her niece Julie while in Berlin (between 1907-1914). 

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

Juliana Wilhelmina Bause: Löhrs Garten in Leipzig

As an in between posting on a rainy day (it is) and somewhat outside the general interest of this Blog today I share my research on this delicate washed pen and ink drawing by Juliana Wilhelmina Bause (1768-1837) I've recently discovered.

She is mostly remembered by a series of highly regarded copper plate engravings and although described in textbooks and lexicons, I’ve not been able to find them in the Internet. My guess Juliana choose the island designed and constructed in the newly commissioned English gardens (no longer existing) of her husbands city-palace in Leipzig. Anyway, what follows is what I was able to find about the artist on a rainy day, her family, life and her circles in Leipzig.

 Park, greenhouses and plan of Löhrs gardens.  

Her father Johann Heinrich Bause (Halle 03-01-1738 – 05-01-1814 Leipzig) was an important and highly regarded German copper engraver and professor in the Leipzig Academy.  

He was the son of Christian Gotlieb Bause (Halle 1696-1745) and Sophia Elisabeth Dryander (Halle 1705-1761). He is best known for his portraits of writers, poets, nobility and kings often after original paintings by painter to the Royal Court Anton Graff (1736-1813) (above, Bause by Graff) whom he’d met while working in Augsburg in 1759 with engraver Johann Jacob Haid (1704-1767) (below)

Bause always followed closely Graffs original paintings and although he was mainly self-taught and self-instructed took Johann Georg Wille (1715-1808), a royal to the king engraver working in Paris, as his example following his instructions transmitted through their correspondence (works by Wille below).

A printed catalogue of Bause's work appeared in Leipzig in 1786. He married in 1763 Henriette Charlotte Brünner (1742-1818) and they had two very beautiful and talented daughters. Friederike Charlotte (1766-1785), a pianist and musical talent, sadly died at the age of 21. Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) thought highly of her piano and glass harmonica playing skills and so did (Johann Wolfgang von) Goethe (1749-1832) who was a friend of the Bause family and  wrote about her extremely good looks.

 Sisters Friederike and Juliana Bause.

Her younger sister, the talented Juliana Wilhelmina Bause (1768-1837) married banker Karl Eberhard Löhr (1763-1813) and like her father she became an engraver and painter but only for her own amusement. Known and highly valued are the 8 landscape etchings by her hand after Kobell (prob. Franz 1749-1822), Johann Sebastian Bach Jr. 1748-1778, his father Carl Emanuel Bach and his grandfather Johann Sebastian Sr. ) and Both (prob. Andries Dirksz. 1608-1650) published in 1791.

Johann Sebastian Bach Jr. 

Recently widowed and forced to leave her house in 1813, ordered by French General Jean Toussaint Arrighi Casanova (1778-1853), a relative of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). Casanova fought in the battle of Leipzig (16/19 october 1813, the “Völkerschlacht”) where the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden clashed and Napoleon and the French (with Polish, Italian and German) armies were defeated. 

Taking care of her father she moved with him to Weimar where he died a year later leaving her his vast collections of engravings. His last work was a s portrait of his son in law Karl Eberhard Löhr.

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Karl Eberhard Löhr was the son of banker Eberhard Heinrich Löhr (1725-1798) in Leipzig who’d made a fortune during the 7 year war (1756-1763). 

With this newly gained wealth in 1771 he had transformed a swampy marsh, inherited from his wife’s  Rahel Charlotte Barthel’s (1739-1803) father, just outside the old city into lustrous English gardens, a pond, huge greenhouses and an island: “Löhrs Garten” later “Keils Garten”, a Promenade  (“Tröndlring”) and a Palace as his house. Rich as a royal Karl Eberhard had build a huge collection of paintings. 

Karl-Eberhard and Juliana's daughter Juliane Henriette Löhr married Johann Georg Keil (1781-1857) a poet, scolar and intellectual who managed the estate, bequest and immense collections of his wifes’ two grand-fathers. They returned to the house in 1830 but the family sold it in 1889 when it was transformed in Hotel Fürstenhaus, existing to this day.

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

Kurt Frindby & Jakob Erikson: Eve Repentant, after the apple.

Eve repentant

("after the apple")

Visiting a collectors and antiques fair last fall I discovered her and instantly fell in love. Over the years I've had many encounters with objects, prints and paintings "I just could not live without". But too often I had to and did. Older and wiser now, I decided to spend the greater part of my budget-for-this-day on my new muse, not knowing I'ld ever meet her again.  

Kurt Frindby and Jacob Eriksen
?

The label(*) mentions Kurt Frindby (thought to be the retailer) and the artist Jakob Erikson. 

(*) Googling I actually found two different labels: 

It is, according to the label, an original copy, monogrammed J.E. and its of a sculpture in Charlottenburg Art Exhibition (Kopenhagen). But it's not unique. Googling Frindby and Eriksen (who isn't mentioned in any Lexikon but the Internet says (1899-1995) I found some more examples of my oak "Fynbopigen", which I failed to translate. My heart says: "very nice build girl" which I think she is. And I even found some (not many) examples of other sculptures by illusive Jacob Eriksen.  

Please help me to identify these two men and the history of this sculpture. And if you happen to know the whereabouts of her kneeling sister: please contact me. I'ld love to have her.      

  

August Rodin (1840-1917) and Eve. 

Jakob Eriksen, who-ever he was, obviously was inspired by Rodin's famous sculpture of Eve. My "research" shows Rodin could haven been inspired (he probably was, he knew his colleague Brock very well) by Thomas Brock's "Eve Repentant" exhibited in the Paris World Exhibition in 1898. There are today many copies of Rodin's Eve displayed all over the world.  

Auguste Lepere (1849-1918) and Rodin's Eve.

Lepere, with Henri Rivière and the Beltrand brothers the godfathers of Modern Printmaking, showed his engraving skills combined with a touch of artistic interpretation and a simple extra color block in this original 1898 "the Studio" print of his friend's sculpture I was able to find and purchase recently (thank you Irene !) to accompany my Eve.   

Edward Steichen (1879-1973) and Rodin's Eve. 

Edward Steichen, famous early photographer in Rodins studio (1907) shooting this historical photograph. 

Thomas Brock (1847-1922) and Eve.

Brock was greatly praised and admired for his Eve Repentant. I'm quite sure he was inspired by the paintings of George Watts, sculpting his Eve that is now on display in the Tate Gallery but was in the Paris World Exhibition of 1898.   

George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) and Eve.

Well, I think I've found the source and origin of this chain of Eve Repentant sculptures. It was the third and last of a tryptic ("the new Eve" and "Eve tempted" painted by George Frederic Watts. A project started around 1875 and also exhibited in Paris. These paintings now are also in the Tate in London.    

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