Marianne Manasse

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Marianne Manasse (born May 15, 1911 in Breslau ; † January 15, 1984 in Durham , North Carolina ) was an art historian who had emigrated from Germany, a German teacher at a black college and a painter.

On the run from the racist persecution in Europe

Marianne Manasse was born in Wroclaw in 1911. Her parents were Otto Bernhard and his wife Louise Lili (née Guttentag). The parents moved with the children to Berlin, where Marianne “lived there, except for brief study periods in France, Freiburg and Vienna, until Jews were no longer allowed to attend universities in Germany”. Her studies and the first phase of her emigration are presented in a somewhat more differentiated manner by Christoph E. Schweitzer: “Because of Hitler's rise to power she could not complete her studies in Germany. For a while her parents were able to support her while studying in France, but when that was no longer possible, Marianne returned to Berlin. From there she obtained a position at the Landschulheim as a teacher of French and art, and as counselor to female students. ”At the Landschulheim in Florence mentioned here, her later husband Ernst Moritz Manasse had already been working since November 1, 1935 , teaching Latin and Greek, as well as German, philosophy, art history and antiquity. Whether the "Miss. Bernhard ”, as Ernst Moritz Manasse described it in a letter dated May 3, 1936 to his friend Paul Oskar Kristeller , was already at school before him or only got there at the beginning of 1936, is not clear. But a close connection seems to have quickly developed between the two, which was particularly helpful for Ernst Moritz Manasse: “Her natural talent as well as her pedagogical training helped her in these assignments, and she helped her husband with his approach to teaching on an elementary level for which his studies had not prepared him. “A married couple, as already indicated here, the two became on May 21, 1936 when they were married in Florence.

Despite the controversies with the Kempner couple mentioned in the aforementioned letter to Kristeller , the Mannasses seem to have felt quite comfortable in Florence and at school throughout 1936. However, Ernst Moritz Manasse continued to look for career alternatives, preferably in the USA. In 1937, however, the phase of relative calm ended for the two of them: They had informed the school management in the spring of 1937 that Marianne was pregnant. The school management immediately resigned her and suggested that Manasse resign to live outside as before, but continue to work as a teacher. The situation escalated and also resulted in Manasse's resignation. According to Ubbens, the reason given by the school management for Marianne Manasse's resignation was that the students could not be expected to have a pregnant teacher. Schweitzer also puts the termination in the context of a changed school policy by the directorate of the Landschulheim: “The directors at that time, who had turned the goals of the school away from the humanities toward pragmatic goals, used the news to dismiss her and, for all practical purposes, him too since his salary would not support a family of three. "

Robert Kempner responded to the complaint brought by the Manasses about their dismissal with a defamation campaign and emphasized the merits of the two school directors (next to him Werner Peiser ) for the emigrants, whom they accused of being too weak to secure their own livelihood. Kempner also did not shy away from dragging his parents, Bernhard, who were still living in Germany, into the conflict, assumed considerable deficiencies in everyday school life, referred to his experience in personal matters due to his earlier work as a Prussian ministerial official and indirectly threatened bad job references. But the legal victory was won by the Manassehs with the help of an Italian lawyer. At the beginning of November 1937, shortly before the birth of their son Georg, they were granted compensation and the school issued them a positive job reference.

In this situation, the professional future of Ernst Moritz was probably in the foreground, as Marianne could not refer to a completed degree at the time. Another year in Italy followed, which Ernst Moritz used for applications in England and the USA, and which also brought them a stay in prison: “Ernst, Marianne, and their three-month-old son George were put in prison in connection with Hitler's visit to various Italian cities, among them Florence. ”In July 1938 the Manasses left Florence and moved to Lana to the“ Alpine Schulheim am Vigiljoch / Scuola alpine die Monte San Vigilio ”, where in the meantime Wolfgang Wasow , who also had a dispute with Kempner at the country school in Florence and Gabrielle Bernhard, Marianne Manasse's sister, lived and worked. There was only a stopover before the final departure from Europe: “Shortly afterwards, they were expelled from Italy altogether, and while Marianne and their son managed to get to Brazil, Ernst was able to obtain a visitor's visa to the US with the help of an uncle who lived in Chicago. "

Ernst Moritz Manasse had to go through a few unsuccessful applications after his arrival in the USA before, with the help of his friend Ernst Abrahamsohn, on September 26, 1939, he started a one-year position as an instructor at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University , NCCU for short) in Durham . Marianne Manasse had received a visa for Brazil for herself and her son on October 17, 1938 and was able to embark from Livorno the following day. They traveled to Rolândia , where Ernst Moritz's sister, Käte, and her husband, Heinrich Kaphan, ran a coffee plantation. Manasseh's mother also found a new home on this plantation in 1940.

Refuge in the USA in an institution of racial segregation

With his employment in Durham, Ernst Moritz Manasse had created the conditions for his wife and son Georg to follow suit. You entered the United States in December 1939. Two years later the second son, Gabriel, is born. In the autumn of 1944, Ernst Moritz applied for American citizenship.

Ernst Moritz Manasse had become an employee of a "Black College", created exclusively for black students and without reference to the white environment. There were eleven such institutions in North Carolina alone, the NCCU, founded in 1910, being the youngest of them. Ernst Moritz Manasse made it clear in his interview with Edgcomb what it means to live in a society with strict racial segregation, and where he and his family, themselves racially persecuted, now tried to oppose the racist paranoia of the white majority society, which has no contacts tolerated between whites and blacks. His son added there, just as his mother tried to disregard everyday racism.

"I remember very vividly an incident when I was with my mother on the bus. A pregnant black lady got on the bus and in those days blacks sat from the back forward and the whites from front backward. And we were close to the place where those came together and there really were no other seats. And my mother - we had been in separate seats - picked me up and put me in her lap so that the black pregnant lady could sit down, which she did, at which point the bus driver stopped the bus and threw us off. "

This happened at the end of the forties of the last century, Gabriel Manasse was not yet ten years old at the time, his mother in her late thirties. For him this event shows:

"Well, my mother was, in a certain sense, always a fighter. I mean she was angry and self-righteous. She was right, but - but in a battle that at that point of history could not be won. "

A few years earlier, on Sunday, March 12th 1944, the year in which Ernst Moritz Manasse applied for American citizenship, a memorable event took place in Durham: The Secret Game . It was the first multiracial basketball game in the southern United States, and it was played in the strictest of secrecy. Two teams from Durham faced each other on the pitch: the white team from Duke University and the black team from North Carolina Central University. It was not until March 31, 1996 that this game, which "has become symbolic of how resistance to Jim Crow occurred outside the traditional civil rights movement", became known to a broad public. Scott Ellsworth, a Duke graduate historian, wrote an article about it in the New York Times . In an article for the campus magazine "Duke Magazine" Scott Ellsworth goes into some boundary conditions of this game and reports:

"But even in those Jim Crow-choked days, there were members of the Duke community who envisioned a different kind of racial future for the country. Some dreamed of a time when the South's system of racial apartheid would be erased. Others, however, had begun to act. In an apartment just off East Campus, a small number of Duke professors had begun to meet with their counterparts at the North Carolina College - that is, until the Durham Klan found out and threatened to torch the building. A handful of Duke students, members of the campus YMCA chapter, went even further. Hiding in the backseats of their cars, they drove over to North Carolina College, where they held clandestine, racially integrated prayer meetings. It was out of these daring violations of Jim Crow that the idea for the Secret Game was hatched. "

It is not certain whether the Manasses couple belonged to the "counterparts at the North Carolina College" or were otherwise directly related to this historic basketball game. But the fact is that Ellsworth dedicated several sections in his book to them. In a post by the Leo Baeck Institute on Facebook, it says: “Though not directly related to the 1944 basketball game that day, they were important figures in the movement towards integration in North Carolina and two chapters are devoted to discussing their roles and experiences in North Carolina at this time. "

As Schweitzer suggests, Marianne Manasse began teaching as a teacher at North Carolina State University soon after her arrival in Durham . After her two children had reached school age, she herself, who had not been able to complete her studies in Europe, started studying again. She earned a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . A few years later, a master's degree in comparative literature followed at Duke University. At some point during this time she became a German teacher at the NCCU. At the end of November 1955 she seems to have applied for membership in the NCCU pension scheme, and in May 1959 the "Chairman Germanic Languages ​​and Literature" wrote to the dean and wrote a very benevolent reference to her for the past two years. Further documents allow the conclusion that Marianne Manasse was offered by the NCCU for at least the entire fifties only on fixed-term contracts.

Regardless of the long unexplained professional status: Marianne Manasse was a committed teacher who stood up for her black students - as her son Gabriel says in retrospect, in a way that is not always acceptable:

"My Mother was and became increasingly, as she aged, pro-black, but pro-black in ways I'm not sure were always in their best interests if one looks in a longer scale. She wanted to be nice to the students and tended to give them perhaps better grades than they might have earned. She was I think quite popular with the coaches, the sports teams who always wanted their students - their athletes to go into her classes because they would almost invariably pass if they appeared. "

Family conflicts could not always be avoided because of this behavior, since her husband, as head of the department for Latin, Greek, German and philosophy, was also her superior. According to his son, he tried for a long time to outsource German as a subject from his department, but he never succeeded. Nevertheless, Gabriel Manasse assumes that his parents were "quite happy at the institution", and that his mother in particular was involved in so many things that she never thought of leaving Durham, where she died in 1984. Shortly before her death, Marianne Manasse reported in an interview for an article about her about the hard journey that took her from Europe to the safety of Durham. She talked about the help she had been given in her escape and the many bridges that had been built for her. Norman E. Pendergraft, the director of the “NCCU Art Museum”, took up this quote in 1989 at a ceremony for the handover of a painting by Marianne Manasse to the museum and declared: “We are fortunate that those bridges led her and her family to Durham . "

The painter

Little is known about the relationship between the two Bernhard sisters Marianne and Gabrielle, who is two years younger. In 1937 both worked at the rural school home in Florence , and both of them met their husbands there. While the marriage of Marianne and Ernst Moritz Manasse lasted a lifetime, the marriage between Gabrielle and Wolfgang Wasow divorced in 1980. Gabrielle Wasow then married the artist Klaus Brill, began a career as a painter and was involved in the homeless movement on the west coast. “Artists Gabrielle & Klaus Brill have been longtime champions of homeless advocacy.”, It said on the occasion of an exhibition opening in April 2014, and the Brill family donated all the proceeds from this exhibition to a homeless initiative. This corresponds to Marianne Manasse's social commitment for black rights as well as her artistic career, the beginning of which is unknown. In 1948, however, she must have been an accomplished painter, as the portrait of Hertha Sponer from that year shows. In this respect, Schweitzer's statement about her late career as a painter, "Late in life she also had many productive years as a painter.", Is probably not correct.

It is difficult to write about your pictures from face to face. Few are accessible on the Internet; most are in the North Carolina Central University museum and in private collections. The following assessments of Manasse's painting therefore follow a lecture by Norman E. Pendergraft, the director of the “NCCU Art Museum”. For him, Manasse's early works are still strongly influenced by the German Expressionists , and he sees their early landscape paintings as stylistically close to Oskar Kokoschka . Human and animal forms in the early paintings appear distorted to him (as if they wanted to point to mental and physical torments as a result of torture) and characterized by shrill colors, not very naturalistic or representational. In addition to Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde , both members of the artist group Die Brücke , seem to have been strong sources of inspiration and learning for Marianne Manasse for this style . In addition, there are influences from Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse , which Marianne Manasse combined to form an expressive and satisfying personal style of painting.

Manasse's late work, after Pendergraft the works from the 1970s and 1980s, differ in technique and feeling from their earlier works. It seems to him that the decisive factor is that the artist has now moved far away from the nightmare of the Hitler years in terms of location and time, which allows her to develop a vision of happier times in her work. It allows yourself to focus on the joys in life and to express them. Expressionism still shapes her work, but it is subjected to a happier narrative and now additionally shaped by a changed technique, a mixed technique of collage and painting. In this context, Pendergraft particularly highlights the picture “Fairy Tale: Grim and Not so Grim”, in which he not only sees the expression of a happy childhood recalled, but also the happy and humorous moments on the way to a new home. For Pendergraft it is works that speak of extraordinary journeys and safe arrival; He compares it to manuscripts ( "illuminated manuscripts"), which is also unique visual statement by Marianne Manasseh were. This collage technique can best be recognized on the Internet by her picture “Farm Workers on the Back of a Truck”, while the portrait of Hertha Sponer from 1948 can clearly be attributed to an earlier painting period.

Pendergraft finally quotes from an obituary for Marianne Manasse in the “Durham Morning Herald” of January 27, 1984, in which it was said: “Most of us leave only our children as a mark on this earth, but artists have special opportunities. When they make marks with paint that someone else finds pleasing or treasures, their presence transcends the finality of death. Marianne Manasse's spirit lives in her paintings. ”A short obituary in“ Duke Magazine ”shows that Marianne Manasses had been sick for a long time. Nevertheless, shortly before her death, there were exhibitions at Duke University in the "Durham Arts Council".

Works

Only a few pictures of Marianne Manasse can be viewed on the Internet:

  • The portrait of Hertha Sponer graces the title page of the book Marie-Ann Maushart: Hertha Sponer: A Women's Life as a Physicist in the 20th Century , ISBN 978-1-46533-804-4 .
  • Farm workers on the back of a truck

Her works of art are in the museum of North Carolina Central University, some pictures also in Duke University and in private collections.

literature

  • Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow. Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges . Krieger Publishing Company, Malarbar (Florida), 1993, ISBN 0-89464-775-X . The book contains interviews with Ernst Moritz Manasse and his younger son Gabriel Manasse, a psychiatrist. Helpful in understanding the title: Swastika and Jim Crow .
  • Irmtraud Ubbens: The country school home in Florence In: Childhood and youth in exile - A generation theme (= exile research. An international yearbook , volume 24, p. 117ff). edition text + kritik, Munich, 2006, ISBN 3-88377-844-3
  • Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile: A Reconstruction. De Gruyter, Berlin and Boston, 2014, ISBN 3-11-030279-9
  • Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spalek's suitcases: The bequests of Ernst Moritz Manasse and Philipp Fehl. In: Wulf Koepke and Jörg Thunecke (eds.): Preserving the Memory of Exile. Festschrift for John M. Spalek on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday. Edition Refugium, Nottingham (England), 2008, ISBN 0-9506476-1-6 , pp. 40 to 73.
  • Scott Ellsworth: The Secret Game , Little, Brown and Company, 2015, ISBN 9780316244619 . A documentary film about this game had already been made in 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The sparse biographical data seem symptomatic of women at the side of more famous men. As in the case of her sister Gabrielle, who was first married to the mathematician Wolfgang Wasow and who later became a very successful and socially committed painter under the name Brill, there is hardly any independent information about Marianne Manasse. The quote here comes from: Norman E. Pendergraft: Marianne Manasse (1911-1984), Art historian and painter ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phy.duke.edu
  2. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  3. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 570
  4. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  5. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 573
  6. ↑ Robert Kempner was one of the directors of the country school home at that time
  7. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 573
  8. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 574
  9. ↑ Irmtraud Ubbens: The country school home in Florence . In: Childhood and youth in exile - a generation theme (= exile research. An international yearbook , volume 24, p. 117ff). edition text + kritik, Munich, 2006, ISBN 3-88377-844-3 , page 130ff
  10. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  11. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German ancient scholars in American exile , pp. 574-576.
  12. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  13. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 580
  14. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  15. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , pp. 578-582.
  16. ↑ Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spaleks Koffern , p. 44
  17. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 590
  18. ↑ Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spaleks Koffern , p. 48
  19. ↑ Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spaleks Koffern , p. 49
  20. ↑ Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow , pp. 33-34.
  21. ↑ Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow , p. 70
  22. ↑ Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow , p. 70
  23. ↑ Thr Secret Basketball Game of 1944 . Link to the original article: JIM CROW LOSES; The Secret Game
  24. ↑ Duke Magazine
  25. ↑ Background player This post also includes two photographs by Marianne and Ernst Moritz Manasse.
  26. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  27. ↑ in a letter dated August 14, 1951 shares z. B. a Mr. Manley to the "Dean of the Undergraduate School" of the NCCU that Ms. Manase was ready to work as an "instructor in the Department of German" in the school year 1951-1952. Acceptance of employment in 1951
  28. ↑ Pension scheme
  29. ↑ Employment reference May 1959
  30. ↑ Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow , p. 71
  31. ↑ Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow , pp. 71-72.
  32. ↑ Norman E. Pendergraft: Marianne Manasse - Art historian and painter ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phy.duke.edu
  33. ↑ The spelling of her name is inconsistent. While she seems to be called "Gabrielle" throughout the USA, the spelling "Gabriele" or the short form "Gaby" is also used for her European years.
  34. ↑ ARTVOCACY with works by Gabrielle & Klaus Brill ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . There is also a picture of Gabrielle Brill on this web page. Another is in the "Dittmar Gallery" of the Norris University Center at Northwestern University : Aztec Circle by Gabrielle Brill @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / warehouse416.com
  35. ^ Ernst Moritz Manasse: A Black College Welcomes a Refugee by Christoph E. Schweitzer
  36. ↑ Norman E. Pendergraft: Marianne Manasse (1911-1984), Art historian and painter ( Memento of the original of December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phy.duke.edu
  37. ^ "Farm Workers on the Back of a Truck"
  38. ↑ Norman E. Pendergraft: Marianne Manasse (19111984), Art historian and painter ( Memento of the original dated December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.phy.duke.edu
  39. ^ Farm Workers on the Back of a Truck
  40. ↑ Video: The Secret Game
personal data
SURNAME Manasse, Marianne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American art historian and painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1984
Place of death Durham , North Carolina