Jean Mannheim

Cat Nap
c.1900
Oil on Canvas
30 x 25

Jean Mannheim (1863-1945)

Jean Mannheim was born in Bad Kreuznach, Germany on Nov. 18, 1863.  After being drafted into the German army, Mannheim fled to France, where he studied art at École Delécluse, Académie Colarossi, and with William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Having learned book binding early in life, he used this trade to support himself while studying art in Paris. In 1884 he traveled to the U.S., where he remained for about two decades. He worked as a portrait painter in Chicago and taught at a Decatur art school. About 1903 he accepted a position at Frank Brangwyn’s school in London and stayed for two years. Returning to the U.S., he taught at the Denver Art School for several years before moving to Pasadena, where he built a home in the Arroyo Seco. Mannheim maintained a studio in the Blanchard Building in Los Angeles where he exhibited and taught, and in 1913 founded the Stickney Memorial School of Fine Arts in Pasadena. His figure studies and landscapes prior to 1915 were tighter and done with a restricted palette. His palette then lightened and he adopted the loose brushwork of Impressionism. He died in Pasadena on Sept. 6, 1945.

Mannheim was a member of several art associations and exhibited widely. His work is represented today in the National Gallery of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Orange County (CA) Museum; the Long Beach Museum and the Irvine (CA) Museum among others. 

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