Bella Martens

Bella Wilhelmine Henriette Adele Martens (born February 3, 1891 in Altona , † December 31, 1959 in Hamburg ) was a German art historian .

Live and act

Bella Martens was the daughter of the traveling salesman Hinrich Friedrich Martens and his wife Anna Anneka Franziska, née Jörgensen. The family lived at 81p in Kleine Gärtnerstrasse. Bella Martens seemed to be intended for a higher female profession. In 1914 she passed an exam as a drawing teacher, then worked as an assistant in the Hamburger Kunsthalle without pay and made up her Abitur. From 1919 to 1926 she studied art history at the University of Hamburg . During her studies with the minor subjects historical auxiliary sciences and classical archeology , she heard from Gustav Pauli , who had been director of the Kunsthalle since 1914, Fritz Saxl , Ernst Cassirer and especially Erwin Panofsky .

During her studies, Martens was unofficially referred to as Pauli's first assistant as early as 1922, and from 1924 to 1927 he published three editions of Old Masters drawings in the Kunstkabinett. Martens took part in research into these so-called Prestel folders, but without being named. She supported Erwin Panofsky, with whom she was friends, in his book projects and organized the exchange between the libraries of the Kunsthalle, the art history seminar and Gertrud Bing , who worked at the Warburg library for cultural studies.

In February 1926 Martens received his doctorate from Panofsky on Master Francke . Her work was more extensive and significant than usual for dissertations. With the consent of Aby Warburg and supported by the Hamburg Scientific Foundation , the text was published in 1929 as a monograph in two volumes. The work, which reviewers praised both for the research results and for the author's strictly scientific attitude, is still considered a standard work today. With this font Martens was also a recognized art historian and official director of the Kupferstichkabinett and the library of the Kunsthalle. Gustav Pauli's statements in letters indicate that Martens was already responsible for the revised order and public usability of the graphic collection, which was completed in 1928, as well as the library that was moved from an old building.

In 1930, Bella Martens successfully prevented the local authorities from selling the Kupferstichkabinett at the Schwerin Art Museum . Despite restrictive cuts in funding, Gustav Pauli tried to get Bella Martens to become a civil servant. He justified this with the scope and importance of Martens' activities in the "scientific headquarters" of the Kunsthalle. Pauli's efforts were unsuccessful. One month after Pauli was dismissed as museum director, Martens was also fired on November 1, 1933. The reasons for this were alleged organizational changes and the Indian origin of Bella Martens' mother, due to which the historian was considered non-Aryan according to the official classification . In the period that followed, Martens suffered a complete breakdown with repeated phases of illness. She subsequently submitted a notarial certificate about her Arierum , which, however, had no consequences.

After the end of the Second World War , the Senate granted Martens a special right to reparation in October 1945. Since her previous position was already filled with a lifelong civil servant, the museum director Carl Georg Heise wanted to set other priorities and she could not find any other support in the museum, Martens applied for reparation in the form of retirement in March 1952. At the end of 1952 Martens refused to be "instructed" in the Museum of Art and Industry . Here she was supposed to edit the collection of ornamental engravings, but the historian rejected this as inappropriate.

Bella Martens had lived at Klosterstieg 11 since the early 1930s. She died of lung cancer on December 31, 1959 in a hospital in Hamburg .

Works

In addition to the monographs on Meister Francke, Bella Martens created private studies on aspects of philosophy and mathematics in later years . Information on this and on the friendship between the historian and Magdalene Pauli is provided by correspondence with Erwin and Dora Panofsky.

literature

• Hanna Hohl: Martens, Bella . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 226-227 .