Continuing my exporation of female artists . . .
Jeanne Mammen was born in 1890 in Berlin into a wealthy and progressive family.
She studied in Paris, Brussels, and Rome from 1906 to 1911. Mammen is best known for her depictions of strong, sensual women and Berlin city life. Early in her career she encountered the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and was influenced by his satirical depictions of Parisian bohemia. Mammen’s early watercolors depicted Paris’s celebrated café society.. When the First World War broke out, however, Mammen’s burgeoning artistic career fell apart. The family’s property was confiscated and, fearing internment, they fled to the Netherlands. Her father lost everything.
Mammen moved to Berlin, where she began working as a commercial artist, providing fashion illustrations for women’s magazines and posters for the newly established UFA film studios. By the late 1920s, Mammen was gaining recognition for her watercolors. Her café scenes of Berlin evoked the fragile status quo. Dressed in a mannish raincoat and beret, Mammen would sit unobserved at corner tables in cafés, drawing her perspective on human behavior. Shades ofToulouse- Lautrec!
In the early 1930s Mammen’s art became more politicized. In 1933, her work denounced by the regime as “Jewish,” Mammen retreated to her two-roomed Berlin flat and remained there throughout the Nazi dictatorship, surviving on the patronage of her friends. With art materials in short supply, Mammen turned to sculpture. In 1976, Mammen died recognized as an important artist in Germany, but it was not until 40 years after her death in 2018 that she was recognized internationally, when her artworks were included in a Tate Modern exhibition and art critics cited her as a big discovery.
