Julie Wolfthorn was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

. Born as Julie Wolf(f) to a family of Jewish faith, she later styled herself as Julie Wolfthorn after the city of Thorn

Torun

Toruń is an ancient city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population is more than 205,934 as of June 2009. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus....

, where she was born.

Life

Wolfthorn was born in Thorn (Toruń)

Torun

Toruń is an ancient city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population is more than 205,934 as of June 2009. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus....

 in the Prussian Province of Prussia

Province of Prussia

The Province of Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1829-1878 created out of the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia....

. She studied painting in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 since 1890, and returned there after a stay in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1898, she was co-founder of the Berlin Secession

Berlin Secession

The Berlin Secession was an art association founded by Berlin artists in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative state-run Association of Berlin Artists. That year the official salon jury rejected a landscape by Walter Leistikow, who was a key figure amongst a group of young artists interested...

 and the „Verein der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreunde Berlin“. In 1905, Julie Wolfthorn and over 200 female artists signed a petition

Petition

A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....

 to be allowed to join the „Preußisch-Königliche Kunstakademie“, which was turned down.

With Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century...

, she founded the exhibition cooperation „Verbindung Bildender Künstlerinnen“. The two women are elected to directors of the „Secession“ in 1912, but she and Fanny Remak are expelled in 1933. Julie Wolfthorn stays in Berlin, cooperating with the „Kulturbund Deutscher Juden“ under pressure from the Nazis, which declare it illegal in 1941, arresting the members and seizing the possessions.

On October 28, 1942, 78 year old Julie Wolfthorn and her sister Luise Wolf (which like all other family members except the painter called themselves Wolff or Wolf) were transported to Theresienstadt. She is said to have continued drawing, as far as possible under the circumstances, until her death on December 29, 1944.

Work

Wolfthorn was known for her portraits, among others of Ida Dehmel, Richard Dehmel

Richard Dehmel

Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel was a German poet and writer.- Life :...

, Carl Ludwig Schleich

Carl Ludwig Schleich

Carl Ludwig Schleich was a German surgeon and writer who was a native of Stettin, Pomerania.He studied medicine in Zurich, Greifswald and Berlin, where he was an assistant to Rudolf Virchow . In 1887 he received his doctorate at the University of Greifswald, and stayed there as an assistant until...

, Hedda Eulenberg

Hedda Eulenberg

Hedda Eulenberg was a German translator and writer- Biography :Eulenberg was born in Meiderich. She was the daughter of Wilhelm Maase, a director for music....

, Gabriele Reuter

Gabriele Reuter

Gabriele Reuter was a German writer.Gabriele Reuter, who was widely-read in her lifetime though now is almost forgotten, was known for her novel From a Good Family , subtitled "the Passion of a Girl", which described a typical young woman of the Wilhelmine era...

, family members of writers Hedwig Lachmann

Hedwig Lachmann

Hedwig Lachmann was a German author, translator and poet.-Life:Lachmann was born in Stolp, Pomerania in 1865 and was the daughter of a Jewish cantor. She spent her childhood in Stolp and a subsequent seven years in Hürben . At the age of 15, she passed exams in Augsburg to become a language teacher...

 and Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of communist anarchism and an avowed pacifist. Landauer is also known for his study and translations of William Shakespeare's works into German...

, the family of architect Hermann Muthesius

Hermann Muthesius

Adam Gottlieb Hermann Muthesius , known as Hermann Muthesius, was a German architect, author and diplomat, perhaps best known for promoting many of the ideas of the English Arts and Crafts movement within Germany and for his subsequent influence on early pioneers of German architectural modernism...

, opera singer Irmgard Scheffner, many actrices like Tilla Durieux

Tilla Durieux

Tilla Durieux was a renowned Austrian actress of the first decades of the 20th century.Born Ottilie Godefroy, she trained in Vienna, her native town and got her first engagement in Breslau...

 or Carola Neher

Carola Neher

- Biography :Neher was born in Munich to a music teacher in 1900. She started to work as a bank clerk in 1917. In the summer of 1920, she gave her debut performance at the Baden-Baden theater without a specific stage education, later also working at the theaters of Darmstadt, Nuremberg and at the...

, and many other famous people of her time from Berlin, mainly female activists.

Literature

• Hedwig Brenner: Jüdische Frauen in der bildenden Kunst II. Konstanz 2004.