The artist, art patron and cultural personage Charlotte Mannheimer was crucial for the establishment of modernism in Gothenburg during the 1910s and 1920s. She ran the centrally located New Art Gallery, which became an important platform for disseminating the novel style , with its brilliant colours, on Gothenburg’s cultural scene. She also served in different positions at several of the city’s important public art institutions, but supporting young artists was always her top priority. Charlotte Mannheimer’s dedication to art was founded on her own work as an artist.
Early on, Mannheimer became friends with several of the artists who are considered to have paved the way for modernism’s breakthrough in Sweden, such as Tor Bjurström, Isaac Grünewald, Gösta Sandels and Birger Simonsson. Stylistically, many of these artists were highly influenced by Henri Matisse and a number of them had been his pupils in Paris. Some of these artists later established their own artist group in Gothenburg. Their contact with Mannheimer was undoubtedly an important reason for their choice of city, since several of them received financial support from her. The Mannheimer family home became an important meeting point for these artists and other cultural personages from Gothenburg and the other Nordic countries.
Over time, Charlotte Mannheimer’s role on the public art scene in Gothenburg took precedence over her own career as an artist. In parallel with her commitment to the New Art Gallery, Charlotte Mannheimer was also for many years the vice-chairman of the Gothenburg Art Association, an important arena for Nordic contemporary art in Gothenburg. Through donations of contemporary art to the Gothenburg Museum’s art department and schools, she also ensured that the younger generation of artists were seen by a broader public.
The exhibition presents a selection of Charlotte Mannheimer’s own works, along with works by the Nordic modernists she supported as well as those who exhibited at other venues in the city. For the most part, the featured works are from the Gothenburg Museum of Art’s collection. Here, modernist art is shown in a West Swedish and Norwegian perspective, providing a partly different angle on the story of the development of modernism in Sweden.
Charlotte Mannheimer the artist
Charlotte Mannheimer trained for a long time as an artist, studying at South Kensington Art School in London, as well as at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. She stemmed from a Jewish family, growing up in London with a Danish father and a Dutch mother. At the age of 18, she moved with her family to Copenhagen, where she continued the art studies that she had started in London. Her marriage to Otto Mannheimer subsequently led her to relocate to Gothenburg. Periodically, different private and public functions took precedence over her own artistic career. For a woman in this era to combine motherhood, a career as an artist and board memberships was no doubt challenging. Still, Mannheimer’s art was shown in a several talked-about exhibitions, and she also spent a few months at Henri Matisse’s art school in Paris 1909.
Mannheimer’s artistic production comprises chiefly portraits and intimate interiors. Her art is often described as low-key and muted, with references to Danish painting from the 1880s. In exhibition contexts, she received mostly positive reviews for her moving and nuanced portrayals of people. Critics often characterized her works as having a “feminine character” and “sensitive colouring”. As early as 1896, Mannheimer exhibited at the Gothenburg Art Association in a group exhibition. However, she did not have her first solo exhibition in the city until 1913. In autumn 1918, she also exhibited at her own New Art Gallery, which had just opened. Mannheimer often took part in group exhibitions in different constellations, for instance with Birger Simonsson, Gösta Sandels and Sigfrid Ullman. She also took part in exhibitions under the auspices of the Swedish Women Artists Association, an organization that was formed to facilitate women artists’ participation in different exhibition contexts.
The inner circle – Gothenburgers and Norwegian pupils of Matisse
Charlotte Mannheimer’s friendship and her support were crucial for Birger Simonsson and the artist group “the Gothenburgers” on the West coast. The group, whose other members included Gösta Sandels and Sigfrid Ullman, had close ties with several of Matisse’s Norwegian pupils, such as Jean Heiberg, Henrik Sørensen and Axel Revold. For several years in the late 1910s, Birger Simonsson was the head of the Valand art school and an important figure on Gothenburg’s art scene. Simonsson and Sørensen were close friends, and it was partly thanks to their connection that the art scene of Gothenburg was linked with the Norwegian art world.
Many exhibitions of Norwegian artists were held in Gothenburg, and the director of the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Axel Romdahl, described how Henrik Sørensen “functioned as a catalyst in Gothenburg’s art world”. Sørensen had made a controversial debut on the Swedish art scene when he showed the work Music Hall Entertainer in Stockholm in 1911, and he frequently took part in exhibitions in Gothenburg. He also conveyed contacts that helped the Gothenburg Museum of Art to acquire both Norwegian and French art for its collection. Sørensen inspired and assisted Conrad Pineus in accumulating an important collection of French art, including works by among others Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir. Some of these works subsequently became part of the collection of the Gothenburg Museum of Art.
The Gothenburg art scene
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Valand building on Vasagatan was the most important venue for contemporary art exhibitions in Gothenburg, normally organized by the Gothenburg Art Association. In conjunction with the Tercentenary Jubilee Exhibition in 1923, the Gothenburg Museum of Art was built and inaugurated, as well as Konsthallen (the Gothenburg Art Gallery), where the Art Association continued to hold temporary exhibitions. The exhibition Nordic Art, which was part of the Tercentenary Jubilee Exhibition, made headlines in Gothenburg and the other Nordic countries – and cemented the city’s reputation as an important hub for modern art. At the same time, many smaller exhibitions were also held in the city, making it, all in all, one of the biggest art ventures in Sweden up to that time.
The Nordic Art presentation featured artists from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The Swedish section included works by Nils von Dardel, Leander Engström, Mollie Faustman, Arvid Fougstedt, Sigrid Fridman, Isaac Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén, Einar Jolin, Vera Nilsson, John Sten, and others. Many of these artists are among the most familiar names in Swedish modernism, and they are also represented in this exhibition.
Public functions in Gothenburg’s art world
During the late 1910s, Charlotte Mannheimer played an increasingly public role on the contemporary art scene in Gothenburg. Alongside her work with the New Art Gallery, and her patronage of the young modernists, Mannheimer was on the board of the Gothenburg Art Association, starting in 1917 and lasting for the rest of her life. Most of this time, Mannheimer was the only female board member. The Art Association’s schedule for temporary exhibitions was intense. Here, young artists had the opportunity to exhibit their works, even though the older generation was also represented in the programme. A presentation of Isaac Grünewald and Sigrid Hjertén in 1916 was one of the most discussed exhibitions and attracted many visitors. Some of the Association’s members found modern art provocative and Grünewald’s works were described as “outgrowths that should be pruned to keep the tree of art in good health”. Early in his career, Grünewald had received Mannheimer’s support, and Hjertén was one of several women artists Mannheimer showcased at the New Art Gallery. Towards the end of her life, Mannheimer was also on the board of the Valand art school, a role that interested her considering her unwavering support for new generations of artists.
New Art – the role of art-gallery owner and exhibition commissioner
The New Art Gallery was one of the first venues for contemporary art in Gothenburg. Officially, Charlotte Mannheimer started the company New Art Ltd. in September 1918, along with Jean O. Ericson, the shipping magnate Ivar Lignell, the art collector Conrad Pineus, and the artists Birger Simonsson and Sigfrid Ullman. In practice, however, Mannheimer ran the gallery by herself, with the assistance of Alma Peterson, a friend of the Simonsson family who later became an art-gallery owner herself.
The New Art Gallery allowed Mannheimer to choose which contemporary artists she deemed of interest to present to the art public of Gothenburg. The exhibitions usually had a running time of two weeks, which meant that the schedule was intense and time-consuming. The gallery showed both young and unknown artists, as well as more famous names – a number of them were part of Mannheimer’s social network. Many of the artists who took part in exhibitions were women artists whom she had collaborated with in group exhibitions in other contexts. For instance, Mannheimer was one of seventeen women presented in the so-called April exhibition at Liljevalchs Konsthall in 1921, at which she also served as exhibition commissioner along with Maj Bring, Mollie Faustman and Sigrid Fridman. These artists also regularly featured in the New Art Gallery’s exhibition programme.
As an art-gallery owner, board member and donor, Charlotte Mannheimer was an important player on the city’s public art scene, but her connections in the cultural sector extended all over the Nordic countries. Partly thanks to her contacts, both national and international modernists were introduced in Gothenburg. Through donations, patronage, providing exhibition opportunities and acquisitions, Mannheimer was involved in establishing the canon of art history – even though her most important goal was probably to support young artists and disseminate contemporary art to the public.