Once a Berliner, always a Berliner. Born in 1890, Jeanne Mammen left Berlin only to grow up in Paris – where she trained at the Académie Julian – then to gain courage in Brussels (at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts) and Rome (at the Scuola Libera Academica of the Villa Medici).At the turn of the century, her father was the director of a glassblowing factory, and Jeanne, still a child, discovered life from the cozy cocoon of a wealthy family; she then lived in Passy, in a luxurious villa.
But the war interrupted everything. Her father was considered an enemy national, and the family's assets were seized by the French government. Jeanne returned to Berlin penniless, while soldiers were dying by the tens of thousands in the trenches. From 1918, the survivors of the war haunted the city, the badly wounded and torn apart by the actors of the New Objectivity , such as Otto Dix and George Grosz. She is the female counterpart of these sensitive souls in traumatized Europe. Lighter that said, she is also more original, because attracted by lesbian couples, which she represents in number. Forgotten for a time, it is moreover the feminist and lesbian movements that rediscover her in the 1970s.
Her work
After having illustrated a few literary works in a symbolist vein in Paris (including Gustave Flaubert's sulphurous The Temptation of Saint Anthony , a book that deeply affected her from a young age), Jeanne Mammen set about capturing the spirit of the Berlin era, all about the decadence of the post-war period. Her depictions, tinged with a barely veiled eroticism, lead the viewer into the city's shady circles, and depict jaded heterosexual couples, but also women with short hair, who smoke, dance, caress each other, and wear trousers. Her fine, mannerist lines are illuminated with pale hues, applied in watercolor shades. To make a living, Jeanne Mammen also drew fashion, press, and film posters.
seen in France
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