Emanuel Manasse was born into a Jewish family in Tutova, Romania in 1909. As a teenager he moved to Italy and trained as a sculptor, enrolling in 1927 at the Scuola Libera del Nudo (Life Drawing School), Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence. By 1939–40 he was in London, where Ben Uri acquired his bronze bust of the novelist Louis Golding, exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1951 he moved to São Paulo,Brazil, later showing at the 2nd Bienal. In 1984 he settled in the USA. Emanuel Manasse died in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, in 1989.
Sculptor Emanuel Manasse was born into a Jewish family in Tutova, Romania in 1909. His biography is complicated by repeated changes in the way his name and nationality were recorded. Born Manolache Manase, he appears in Italian records from 1927 as Emanuele Manase, before a full Italianisation in 1934 to Emanuele Manasse. In Britain he was usually reported in the press as Emanuel (or Emmanuele) Manasse, while official documentation recorded him as Emanuel Manesse. In Brazil he adopted Emanuel Manasse as his artistic name.
Manasse’s interest in art emerged early and he moved to Italy as a teenager to study sculpture. His first confirmed Italian training is recorded in January 1927, when he enrolled at the Scuola Libera del Nudo of the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze; he later went to Rome and then to Paris. In Italy he secured a notable public commission. In 1936, as Cesare Bazzani’s Palazzo delle Poste e Telecomunicazioni (Post and Telecommunications building) in Viterbo, north of Rome (begun 1933; inaugurated 1936), was completed, the Ministry of Communications commissioned two bronze façade figures for niches representing the Post and the Telegraph. Only one survives today: Il Telegrafo. For decades its authorship was disputed locally—attributed to Silvio Canevari or Francesco Nagni—until research by Poste Italiane identified Manasse as the sculptor. The companion statue, La Posta, was removed in 1942 to be melted down for wartime use.
By January 1940 Manasse was in London, England and was already connected to Jewish cultural patrons and institutions. On 11 January 1940 the Times reported that Mrs Israel Sieff, wife of Ben Uri's President, hosted a reception at Brook House, Park Lane, to mark the acquisition by the Ben Uri Jewish Art Society of Manasse’s bronze portrait bust of the renowned Jewish novelist, Louis Golding. The Jewish Chronicle described a large gathering ‘in spite of the black-out’ and noted that eight photographs of Manasse’s works were displayed on easels around the rooms (Jewish Chronicle 1940, p. 24). The same report styled him ‘Signor Emmanuele Manasse’ and called him an ‘Italian Jewish sculptor’, a label that likely reflected his long residence and training in Italy and the Italianised form of his name. The Golding bust then entered the Royal Academy of Art’s annual exhibition in 1940, where it triggered a public dispute in the Jewish Chronicle. In a review of the exhibition, the paper’s critic dismissed Manasse’s Louis Golding as ‘neither a good likeness nor a successful composition’ (Jewish Chronicle 1940, p. 22). Painter and Ben Uri Vice-President, Alfred Wolmark, wrote to the newspaper stating that he was personally responsible for Ben Uri’s purchase. He defended the work, arguing that it should be judged on sculptural quality rather than photographic likeness, and noted that the Royal Academy committee had reached the same view (Jewish Chronicle 1940, p. 9). The critic replied the following week, maintaining his right to disagree and noting that Wolmark’s rejection of ‘composition’ implied very different criteria (Jewish Chronicle 1940, p. 17). The Golding head was reproduced in The Times on 16 January 1940. It was later shown in Ben Uri exhibitions, including the Opening Exhibition (1944), and Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings (1946)
In 1941, Manasse contributed his portrait Francis Lantry to the RA's Summer Exhibition, noted by art critic, Jan Gordon, among the notable heads and busts on display (Gordon 1941, p. 14). That year he also exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Annual Exhibition. An undated, signed bronze head of Sir Winston Churchill, mounted on a wooden plinth bearing László Hoenig’s stamp ‘LAHO LONDON’, also indicates his production of small bronze portrait heads in London. During the Second World War Manasse supported himself in the capital by producing garden sculptures, and he married the artist Giovanna Maria Pardini there. On 13 April 1948 the London Gazette recorded his naturalisation, listing him address as: The Studio, 44 Glenilla Road, Belsize Park (an area popular with Jewish emigres) and describing him as ‘of no nationality’.
In 1951 he met the Italian art critic and gallerist Pietro Maria Bardi, who encouraged him to move to Brazil. Manasse relocated to São Paulo in 1951 and lived in Brazil until 1984. In São Paulo he maintained a dialogue with modernist circles and devoted himself to producing sculptures for architectural projects and private collections. He participated in the 2nd São Paulo Biennial in 1953, with the bronze A Jumenta, and around 1955 the Fundação Maria Luisa e Oscar Americano acquired a substantial bronze female figure, later nicknamed A Sereia, which remains installed in the foundation’s park. In 1984 Manasse and Pardini moved to the United States, spending their final years in West Palm Beach, Florida, with Pardini’s sister, Linda Buscaglia. Emanuel Manasse died in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, in 1989. In the UK public domain his work is represented by the Golding bust, acquired by Manchester Jewish Museum, following its deaccession by Ben Uri Gallery and Museum.
Irene Iacono
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Emanuel Manasse]
Publications related to [Emanuel Manasse] in the Ben Uri Library