Anna Neuman
1906, Cottbus, Germany - 1955, Tel Aviv, Israel
Portrait of a Woman, 1940s
Original Hand-Signed Pen on Paper - circa the 1940s
Artist Name: Anna Neuman
Title: Portrait of a woman
Signature Description: Hand-signed in hebrew lower right
Technique: Pen on paper
Image Size: 35 x 34 cm / 13.78" x 13.39" inch
Frame: Unframed
Condition: Good vintage condition: the image is in good condition, complete with no tears, holes, repairs, paint peelings of losses, few light aging stains lower right and few small rips on the margins (invisible once re-framed) - both consistent with the age and use
Artist's Biography:
Anna (Annie) Neumann, Israeli painter, born
Germany, 1906-1955
Anna Neumann was born in Cottbus, Germany, in 1906.
Died in Tel Aviv in 1955.
In her youth, she began painting. After completing high school, she enrolled in
art studies in Berlin.
In 1931 she visited Eretz Israel and in 1933 immigrated to Eretz Israel (then
Palestine under the British Mandate).
At first, she worked in sculpture, but later focused on drawing and
illustration.
Painted Israeli types and portraits, including Berl Katznelson and Henrietta
Szold.
Illustrated the Book of Ruth and the Book of Judith and also children's books.
Among other things, she created illustrations for a Child's Calendar, which
were published in the 1950s by Leon Printers and for the library of Am Oved and
Keren Hayesod.
In 1964 an album of her works was published by Hadar Publishing House. Education
1924-1927 Reinhardt Academy, Berlin, Germany Awards
1932 Adolf Donath Award at large Berlin exhibition. Dr. Karl Schwartz, who
still ran the Jewish Museum in Berlin (shortly before coming to Israel to run
the Tel Aviv Museum), gave her the award. Anna (Annie) Neumann (the illustrations signed: Anne
Neumann; in German: Anne (Annie) Neumann; 1906, Cottbus, Germany - 1955, Tel
Aviv, Israel) was an Israeli – German painter and illustrator.
Biography Annie, daughter of Sarah (nee Weinblum) and
Mendel Neumann, was born in 1906 in Cottbus, Germany, about 120
kilometers from Berlin.
She studied at a gymnasium, and in 1924 - 1929 studied painting at the
Reinhardt Academy in Berlin.
Two drawings of girl’s portraits presented at the annual exhibition
in Berlin in 1932 aroused the attention of art critics and experts, and she won
the "Berliner Tageblatt Adolf Donath” critic prize and received good
reviews in the German press. Neumann was a realistic-academic painter.
"She did not like modernism. She loved to trust the great and the ancient
who stood the test of time," wrote Haim Gamzu (an Israeli art and drama critic, director of
the Tel Aviv Museum in
1962).
It was mainly about sketching portraits that she made in pencil, ink, and
charcoal.
Her most renowned work is a portrait of Henrietta Szold. However, she also
painted in other mediums including watercolors, pastels, and oils. "Her
watercolor drawings and paintings often tended to free lyricism, which is
always associated with a pinch of melancholy”. In 1933, when the Nazis came to
power, Neumann immigrated to Palestine.
Early in her life in Israel she recognized the sculpture of Batya
Lishansky, who exhibited with her a joint exhibition at the Tel Aviv
Museum in 1933 and became her partner.
In 1953 Neumann accompanied Lishansky to
the Netherlands, Switzerland and Paris, and when she returned,
she got cancer. She died in Tel Aviv in 1955, at the age of 48. She
was buried in Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.
In the year following her death (1956), a memorial exhibition was held in her
honor at the Tel Aviv Museum. Selected solo exhibitions
1933 Tel Aviv Museum of Art (with Batia Lishansky)
1949 Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1956 Memorial exhibition, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1981 Anna Neuman: Memorial Exhibition, Guy Gallery, Tel Aviv ((with Batia
Lishansky) Neumann also exhibited in 1953 in Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Uruguay and Argentina, as she accompanied Batia Lishansky's
travels. Group Exhibitions 2015 Each Year Anew: A Century of Shanah
Tovah Cards, Reading Room (Library Foyer), Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1995 Contrasts No. 1, Beit Alon, Givatayim
1969 Art Festival, Painting & Sculpture in Israel, Tel Aviv Exhibition
Grounds
1959 General Exhibition, On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the City of
Tel-Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1956 Annual Exhibition, Art in Israel, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1951 Art in Israel, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1944 Collective Annual Exhibition by Palestinian Artists, Art Gallery of
the ''Habima'' Theater, Tel Aviv
1942 General Exhibition, Art Gallery of the ''Habima'' Theater, Tel Aviv
1937 Group Exhibition, Moghrabi Theater, Tel Aviv
1934 The Portrait in Palestine, The Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem
1933 Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Additional Information: ANNIE
By Dr. Gideon Ofrat In 1955, a week after her death from the
cancer, which disturbed her for 16 months, the philosopher Samuel Hugo Bergman,
who was very impressed from her drawings for the Book of Ruth (published by Leon
the Printer, Tel Aviv, 1949) wrote: "Annie Neumann, who was brought to the
cemetery on the 13th of Tammuz in Tel Aviv, was a great artist and very gentle
and pure soul. […] She was the chosen artist to accompany Ruth's book in
drawings […]. This way of drawing, in which the fine lines of mindfulness and
movement are explored, [...] it seems to me as a symbol of Annie Neumann's
soul. It had something ethereal in its purity, something devoid of substance,
something unreal in its childhood, its innocence ... " Similar
words by SH Bergman appeared in an introduction he wrote in the Annie Neumann
Memorial Exhibition catalog, as stated in 1956 at the Tel Aviv Municipal
Museum, which was then located on Rothschild Boulevard 16.
Interesting and even significant: most of the writers on Annie Neumann's
paintings referred to her soft, gentle and fluttering personality no less than her
nature of work. "She was one of the most humble and gentle painters,
[...] excelled in a refined mental set, which noted her graceful, slightly
painful, yet vibrant personality ...", Gabriel Talpir
wrote. "Annie Neumann was an artistic personality with unusual
emotional nuances. Her delicate drawings expressed her heart's vibration and
her love of the human being”, Haim Gamzu wrote. “She always stood out for
her inconspicuousness, blessings and gentleness," commented
David Arie Friedman in 1949, referring to the artist's participation in the
general exhibitions of Tel Aviv artists. He further wrote: "The thread
that unites all of her works is the subtlety of the perception of reality and
the almost modest and shy expression, satisfied with a little, although this
little holds the multiple." Anna Neumann was born in 1906 in Germany, in
the city of Cottbus, in the state of Brandenburg, 125 miles southeast of
Berlin. From the age of 18 and for five years she studied painting at the Reinhardt Art School in Berlin (the school was founded
in 1902 by the Jewish artist Albert Reinhardt, shut down by the Nazis in 1939 and reopened
in London).
Anna-Annie Neumann excelled mainly in drawing. In 1932, shortly after her visit
to Eretz Israel (in 1931), Berlin exhibited in the big annual exhibition two
sketches of hers, heads of girls, received good reviews in the press and even
the Berliner Tagblatt art critic (Adolf Donath, a Czech Jew, in 1923
Hermann Struck created an engraving of
his portrait). Also, Karl Schwartz, who still ran the Jewish Museum in Berlin
(shortly before immigrating to Israel to run the Tel Aviv Museum), gave her the
award.
The Nazis came to power in 1933, and Annie Neumann immigrated to Israel, got acquainted
with the sculptor Batia Lishansky, became her permanent partner, and even
exhibited with her in 1933 a joint exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum, from the
first exhibitions in the museum.
Neumann presented exhibitions from the moment she came to Israel: mainly
drawings, but also watercolors, pastels and even a handful of oil paintings.
One of these exhibits was shown in early 1935 in the Diwan Jerusalem bookstore.
Mordechai Narkis, who wrote reviews on "Davar" daily newspaper in
addition to his role as curator of the Bezalel National Museum, responded to
the exhibition and noted the pen drawings, and their "honest
innocence".
Already at this stage of her work, the women's subjects stood out: more and
more "Mother and child" drawings, more and more childhood and girl drawings
("friendship", "two sisters"), drawings and watercolors of
Arab women, laundress, Oriental dancer, etc.
The portrait of Henrietta Szold, which Neumann inked, is considered the
pinnacle of her work.
She painted women of different ages, much less males (children's head drawings,
or her father's portrait, or Berl Katzenelson's portrait, or an old man's image
- one in pastel and one in ink).
Women: "Mothers and girls - figures similar to angels, are reminiscent of
Rilke's fragile and dreamy girls, the smile on their lips ties them in a secret
thread” -described Davar art critic. Femininity
in the subject merged into what was generally regarded as
"femininity" at the personality level - the lyrical, the gentle and
the soft, which emerged in the words of all the writers about the creation of
Annie Neumann. Therefore, DA Friedman's criticism of her exhibit at the Tel
Aviv Museum in 1949, is filled with notes and descriptions, such as "Each
picture is a charming little poem in its shortness and diminution, its ease and
fragrance ...".
In addition to Book of Ruth, Annie Neumann also illustrated the Book of Judith
- another woman greater than life. Annie Neumann was basically a realistic-academic
artist, even though her watercolor drawings and paintings often tended to free
lyricism (which is always a pinch of melancholy). In other words, Annie Neumann
did not in any way connect with the local modernist moves, whether they were Parisian
or Berlin Expressionists, neither the abstraction. "As if painting to her
soul, naively, seriously and modestly," Friedman wrote. "She
does create for the sake of the audience, but by the artistic urge in her
heart." Lisette Levy wrote about her exhibition in 1949.
And might be, that this was "femininity" in a pre-feminist sense, i.e.
- giving up the occupation breakthrough, the forcefulness, insistence on
originality at all costs. And instead of all - humility, modesty, quiet and…
love. I didn't get to know Annie Neumann. I was a child when she passed
away. And yet, I feel the purity and clear soul that she had, and even
reminds me of someone I loved and still love. Not coincidentally, her
heart was conceived by Albert Schweitzer in the mark of grace, good and
beautiful. Annie Neumann (originally Anna, but it was all Annie; her name was also
engraved in Nahalat-Yitzhak cemetery as "Annie Neumann") died in 1955
when she was only 48.
In 1964 an album of her works was published by Hadar Publishing House, Tel
Aviv. Batia Lishansky initiated the book publishing.
The short introduction by Haim Gamzu was copied from his short remarks about
Annie Neumann in "Painting and Sculpture in Israel", 1957 edition. The above-mentioned remarks were written by Gamzu
in 1956 on the occasion of a memorial exhibition held for her.
Source: Dr. Gideon Ofrat, Israel's preeminent
curator, art critic, and art historian.
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