Born: 1892 Coburg, Germany
Died: 1988 London, England
Year of Migration to the UK: 1938
Other name/s: Herman Nonnenmacher
Biography
Sculptor, potter and teacher, Hermann Nonnenmacher was born in Coburg, Germany in 1892. He studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and was a member of the Association of German Artists. In 1919 he married Jewish sculptor, Erna Rosenberg, and they settled in Berlin-Zehlendorf, sharing the former studio of Bauhaus master, Lyonel Feininger. Nonnenmacher's sculpture adorned many public buildings, but after the rise of Nazism his art was labelled as 'degenerate' and much was destroyed by the state.
Following the introduction of antisemitic legislation, Erna was persecuted on racial grounds and the couple fled to London in 1938, as Hermann would not divorce her. Soon after arriving, the couple held their first sculpture exhibition in London at Gerald Holtom’s furniture shop in Tottenham Court Road. Hermann is also recorded as carving a decorative sign for Stoatley Rough School, Haslemere; founded in 1934 as a 'German-English School', it educated many kindertransportees, through the efforts of Quaker, Bertha Bracey, and colleagues. The Nonnenmachers' own plight as refugees was highlighted in the Jewish Chronicle review of the First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors held at the Wertheim Gallery in June 1939, the first show under the auspices of the newly-founded Free German League of Culture (a politically-inspired organisation established in Hampstead in 1939, offering cultural support to anti-Nazi German refugees in Britain) – in which both participated, Hermann showing a work appropriately entitled ‘Departing’.
Following the outbreak of war in 1939, and subsequent mass internment in 1940, both Nonnenmachers were interned as enemy aliens: Erna, first in Holloway prison, then in Rushen women's camp on the Isle of Man, while Hermann was held in Onchan, where he made and showed artwork in exhibitions organised by impresario, Jack Bilbo. With fellow artists F. H. K. Henrion and Klaus Meyer, he also contributed illustrations (including cover designs) to the Onchan Pioneer, a magazine published by internees and sold on subscription (Hinrichsen, p. 195). In September 1940 the Jewish Chronicle published Forty Artists Interned, railing against the 'unimaginative stupidity' of the internment of artists, noting that 'Mr and Mrs Nonnenmacher' were 'languishing behind barbed wire' alongside 'Johnny [sic] Heartfield,' Fred Uhlmann, Martin Bloch and Ludwig Meidner (Jewish Chronicle, 6 September 1940). After release, the couple shared a studio at 49 Hornsey Lane Gardens, north London (the move, with horse and cart piled high with sculptures, is recorded in a photograph by émigrée sculptor, Inge King, who was apprenticed to Hermann). At this time, they were sustained by a network of former internees; the daughter of émigré Charles Lahr, anarchist publisher and owner of the Progressive Bookshop in Holborn, recalled: 'Occasionally, we visit Hermann Nonnenmacher, also on my father's list, and his wife […] the ground floor of their Archway house forms one large studio in which stand figures emerging from the stone. […] They are childless and the stone people to which their hands give birth are more to them than flesh and blood' (Sheila Lahr).
In November 1941 the couple participated in the Exhibition of Sculpture and Drawing organised by the FGLC and the Artists International Association (AIA, an exhibiting society founded in 1932 by left-wing artists and writers to promote commitment and resistance to the 'Imperialist war on the Soviet Union, Fascism and colonial oppression' through art. Both also showed in the AIA exhibition Sculpture in the Home, at the Mansard Gallery in Heal & Son's furniture store in October 1945. In 1946, despite being non-Jewish, Nonnenmacher exhibited in Ben Uri's Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings. In the same year, he carved a wooden triptych The Refuge, representing three stages of emigration: Exile, Refuge and Rebirth, commissioned by Bertha Bracey 'for UK Refugee Committees'. He produced further commissions for St. John's, Waterloo (a Festival of Britain church); for Messrs Bunzl, whose family supported many refugees fleeing Nazism; King's College, London; Boulton & Paul Ltd., Norwich (no longer extant); and Merton College, Oxford (no longer extant). Postwar, Hermann taught Modelling and Pottery (1948–70) at Morley College for adult education (which employed a number of émigrés), often sharing teaching with Erna. Photographs show HRH The Queen Mother visiting their class in 1958 (Lambeth Archives) and both participated in the 1969 opening exhibition for the College's new gallery, Contemporary Artists Associated with Morley College. Nonnenmacher exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1940–48, and in 1964 and 1967. Group exhibitions included Art in the Service of the Church, Lambeth Palace, London (1951), Geffrye Museum, London (1973), London Artists from Germany, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (1978); and Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–1945, Schloss Charlottenburg, West Berlin (1986), and re-presented at Camden Art Centre, London as Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933–45 (1986). He was elected member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1955. Hermann Nonnenmacher died in London, England in 1988. His work is represented in the Berlinische Galerie, Germany.
Related books
- Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
- Sasha Llewellyn and Paul Liss, World War II – War Pictures by British Artists (London: Liss, Llewellyn, 2016)
- Rachel Dickson, Sarah MacDougall, Ulrike Smalley, 'Astounding and Encouraging' High and Low Art Produced in Internment on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, in Gilly Carr and Harold Mytum, eds., Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire (London & New York: Routledge Studies in Heritage, 2012), pp. 186-206
- Rachel Dickson, The Ben Uri Art Society and Emigre Artists 1931–1959 in Burcu Dogramaci and Karin Wimmer, eds., Netzwerke des Exils Künstlerische Verflechtungen Austausch und Patronage nach 1933 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2011), p. 320
- Anna Müller-Harlin, Die Artists International Association und Refugee Artists in Anthony Grenville, ed., I Didn't Want to Float, I Wanted to Belong to Something: Refugee Organizations in Britain 1933–1945 (Kenilworth: Rodopi, 2009), pp. 27-49
- Jutta Vinzent, List of Refugee Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists) From Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945), in Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
- Klaus E Hinrichsen, Visual Art Behind the Wire, in Shulamith Behr and Marian Malet, eds., Arts in Exile in Britain 1933–1945: Politics and Cultural Identity (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), pp. 188-210
- Stefan Jacob, Hermann Nonnenmacher, Coburg 1892–1988 London, Erna Nonnenmacher, Berlin 1889–1980 London: Leben und Werk in Texten, Bildern und Dokumenten (Stegaurach, 2003)
- Hermann Nonnenmacher Retrospective catalogue (London: King's College, 1973)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Artists' International Association (exhibitor)
- Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (student)
- Free German League of Culture (exhibitor)
- Morley College for Adult Education (tutor)
- Royal Society of British Sculptors (member)
Related web links
- Hermann Nonnenmacher, Modern British Art Gallery
- Herman and Erna Nonnenmacher, Ben Uri Online Exhibition
- Artists' International Association, Artist Biographies
- Herman Nonnenmacher's biography in Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951 online database
- Refuge by Hermann Nonnenmacher
- Sheila Lahr autobiography
- Morley College database of teaching staff
- Archive image of Hermann Nonnenmacher's woodcarving at Stoatley Rough
Selected exhibitions
- WW2 – War Pictures by British Artists, Liss Llewellyn, Morley College London (2016)
- Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933–45, Camden Art Centre (1986)
- Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–1945, Räumen der Orangerie des Schlosses Charlottenburg, West Berlin (1986)
- London Artists from Germany, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (1978)
- Geffrye Museum, London (1973), Hermann Nonnenmacher: Retrospective Exhibition, King's College, London (1973)
- Contemporary Artists Associated with Morley College, London (1969)
- Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London (1940–48, 1964 and 1967)
- Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Annual Exhibition, Glasgow (1940–54)
- Terra Cotta and Pottery Figurines by Audrey Blackman. Wood Carvings by H. Nonnenmacher, Berkeley Gallery, London (1953)
- Festival of Britain, Art in the Service of the Church Exhibition, Lambeth Palace, London (1951)
- Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Art Gallery, London (1946)
- Sculpture in the Home, Mansard Gallery, Heal & Son, London (1945)
- AIA and FGLC Exhibition of Sculpture and Drawing, London (1941)
- FGLC First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors, Wertheim Gallery, London (1939)
- First London exhibition of sculpture, Hermann and Erna Nonnenmacher, Gerald Holtom's, 259b Tottenham Court Road, London (1938)
