Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1885 Arrowtown, New Zealand

Died: 1926 Wellington, New Zealand

Year of Migration to the UK: 1907

Other name/s: Hermina Arndt

Biography

Painter and etcher Mina (Hermina) Arndt was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Thurlby, near Arrowtown, New Zealand in 1885. Her father, Herman, was a German merchant, and her mother, Marie (née Beaver), was Polish-born. Arndt’s father (in whose memory she was named) died in mysterious circumstances while travelling on business just a month before she was born. Her mother and her three siblings subsequently moved to Dunedin, where Arendt grew up among a highly educated Jewish community. From 1905–06 she attended art classes at Wellington Technical College, studying a range of media, including metalwork, and exhibited with the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.

Owing to the limited professional art training then available in New Zealand, in 1907 she moved to London to further her studies, arriving in 1907 with her mother and two sisters. It is also likely that, following her father's tragic death, the family was seeking solace and new beginnings by embarking on a ‘grand tour’ (Pauli 2014, p. 3). Most colonial art students thought of England as ‘home’ and would have arrived in London with letters of introduction from family, friends or former tutors to help them decide which further course of study to undertake. Arndt was interested in developing portraiture and figure painting and, thanks to contacts within the London Jewish community, she met Royal Academician Solomon Joseph Solomon to discuss her work; she also sought advice from British artists, Harold Speed and Samuel Melton Fisher. Arndt eventually decided not to enrol at any of the better-known local art schools popular among émigré artists in the early 1900s. Instead, she entered Frank Brangwyn’s London School of Art in Kensington, probably as early as 1907, remaining until spring 1909. Unaffected by the opinions of his British detractors, colonial art students admired ‘the vigour and decorative qualities of Brangwyn's paintings long before British audiences did’ (Pauli 2000, p. 84). Arndt’s other teachers at the school included John Swan, William Nicholson and George Lambert. It is possible that Arndt had learnt about this school before leaving New Zealand. It was the only such establishment advertising in the Art Journal which had courses in etching, along with drawing, painting, composition and illustration. Brangwyn encouraged Arndt’s talent for drawing, particularly her etchings and pastels. Her experimentations with printmaking made good professional sense at the time. Prints were popular among collectors (especially in France and Britain) and, because they were cheaper than paintings, represented a steadier source of income for artists trying to get a footing in the London art scene. Arndt’s etchings included a number of rural village scenes and views of the Thames in London. Studying alongside her at the London School of Art between 1907 and 1909 were Australians, Edith Hope and Jessie Traill, and New Zealand-born, Australian painter Kathleen O'Connor.

Arndt remained in Europe for nearly eight years, spending several winters working with the Newlyn painters in Cornwall, focusing on figure painting, mostly peasants, women and children; her portraits of Cornish peasant women, reminiscent of Collier's Cornish work. There she studied with Stanhope Forbes, founder of the Newlyn School, and with his wife Elizabeth. She also she met Harold and Laura Knight, and probably the Australian George Lambert in Penzance. Cornwall attracted many other New Zealand women artists, including Frances Hodgkins, Edith Collier, Dorothy K. Richmond, Margaret Stoddart and Eleanor Hughes. Arndt exhibited twice at the Passmore Edwards Art Gallery, Newlyn (1914 and 1913).

Although regularly visiting Cornwall, in 1909 Arndt moved to Berlin, where she studied under Lovis Corinth. The influence of Corinth’s loose, expressionist style and of his broad brushwork was evident in her work of this time. She also became friends with German Jewish artists Hermann Struck and Julie Wolfthorn. In 1913 she exhibited at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français in Paris. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Arndt found herself as an enemy alien in Germany. Briefly interned with her sister Edith, they were released as part of an exchange of women prisoners, returning to New Zealand in 1914. Arndt tried to establish herself as an artist in Wellington, but the art market had shrunk considerably during her absence. In 1917 she married a Jewish merchant, Lionel Mano, who offered the financial security she needed to focus solely on her art. The couple later moved to remote Motueka, where she faced the arid cultural environment of the provinces and was forced to adjust the style and subject of her work to suit local tastes. Arndt exhibited regularly with the art societies of New Zealand and was a member of the New Zealand Academy of the Fine Arts. She also taught art and run a summer school of painting. Mina Arndt died in Wellington, New Zealand on 22 December 1926. Her work is not currently represented in UK public collections.

Related books

David W Maskill, Traces of the Wake: the Etching Revival in Britain and Beyond (Wellington: Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, 2015)
New Zealand's Women Painters (Auckland: Auckland City Art Gallery, 1975)
Mina Arndt (1885-1926), exhibition catalogue (Auckland: Auckland City Gallery, 1961)

Public collections

Related organisations

London School of Art (student)
Wellington Technical College, New Zealand (student)

Selected exhibitions

Passmore Edwards Art Gallery, Newlyn (1914 and 1913)
Mina Arndt 1885-1926, Auckland City Gallery, 1961

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Mina Arndt]