Jean Mannheim

Jean Mannheim was a German-American painter.

Mannheim began to paint portraits as autodidacts . He also studied bookbinding. At the age of 17 he left his parents' home and went on a hike across Germany, earning his living as a painter and bookbinder. To escape the military service, he fled to France. There he began his studies of painting at the Académie Colarossi , Académie Julian and William Adolphe Bouguereau . During his stay in France, he adopted the French form of his name (Jean).

In 1884 he emigrated to the United States . In Chicago he painted portraits and taught at Decatur School of Art. He visited Paris several times to refine his art and to keep up with Parisian artists.

From 1903 to 1905 he taught in the painting school of Frank Brangwyn in London . Afterwards, he taught at the Denver Art School until 1908, where Rudolph Weisenborn was one of his pupils. In Paris he met his wife, Eunice Drennan, who bore him two daughters. In 1908 the couple settled in Pasadena, California, where Mannheim built a villa on the banks of Arroyo Seco. In 1914 Mannheim was a co-founder of the Stickney Memorial Art School in Pasadena, where he was a teacher.