Pamina Liebert-Mahrenholz’s abstract artworks illustrate the depths of human imagination with their multitude of perspectives. The absence of direct insights from Pamina allows each viewer to embark on a personal expedition through thoughts and emotions, giving rise to a spectrum of interpretations, both diverse and compelling.
Abstract artwork is a reflective mirror, projecting the viewer’s unique experiences, memories, and aspirations. The mirror underscores the profound ability of art to evoke emotions and establish connections. This is especially evident in various interpretations we have obtained on the first of the following three unnamed and undated post-war Pamina abstracts:
It is not known in which order these three paintings were created, but a brief observation reveals that they share some almost identical elements. It is reasonable to assume the three were inspired by similar emotions in Pamina.
It took a lengthy period of observation of the first painting – the one with the orangy red backdrop – before it dawned on Ian Markham (Pamina’s great-nephew) what her inspiration may have been. In Ian’s mind, its abstract form appeared to convey the tumultuous experiences Pamina would have endured during the Nazi era of the 1930s before she could escape from Berlin. For Ian, the black shape within the top centre, framed within a vaguely circular structure, and combined with the orangy red backdrop, were reminiscent of the Nazi flag with its swastika within a white circle and surrounded by a sea of blood red.
Various individuals who have observed this particular painting have expressed their impressions using a diverse array of descriptive language. Examples of their words include “intense” to denote their emotional impact; “claustrophobic” to convey a sense of confinement within the composition’s elements; and “alienation” and an “icy” detachment that transmit a sense of loneliness. The interplay of bold strokes and the dynamic claw-like shapes has created the perception of “violence” or “power.” At the same time, the paintings have been described as a “futuristic” glimpse that invites visions of uncharted artistic horizons.
Nazi oppression
Among Pamina’s known artworks, the orangy red abstract painting may be the sole evidence of how she felt about the Nazi horrors she experienced. Perhaps she felt that any new artwork she might undertake to depict her trauma could become a risk to her career or even her existence, including after the end of World War II.
Notwithstanding her early successes, Pamina’s life was shaped by the oppressive events of the Nazi regime and the war. As a Jew in Nazi Germany, she was forced to relinquish her Prix de Rome award and had to give up her prestigious master studio at the Academy of Arts. She subsequently endured five years of what would have been a terror-stricken existence as she and her beloved mother, Bertha, tried to stay alive in Berlin before their separate escapes – Pamina to England and Bertha to Belgium. During that time, the trajectory of her career came to a virtual standstill due to the constraints inflicted by the Nazis on Jewish and other artists.
She and her non-Jewish husband, Rolf Mahrenholz, eventually fled to England just before the war, leaving much of value behind. This included her Prix de Rome sculpture of 1932 and her “Reclining Nude” sculpture exhibited in 1934 in the Academy of Arts’ Autumn Exhibition, which may have been the pinnacle of her pre-war career.
Despite Pamina and Rolf’s innocence, they were both interned by the British Government as enemy aliens soon after they arrived in England. Their category was the rarely used “Class A” (deemed sufficiently dangerous that they were to be interned for the duration of the war) – possibly because Rolf’s father was a Colonel in the German Army. Pamina was jailed initially in London’s Holloway Prison and then in the Rushen internment camp on the Isle of Man during the war, suffering through two years of ill health and renewed trauma. After her release from internment, she was injected straight into wartime rationing and London’s bomb-scarred scenes. Other than being featured in two exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the 1940s, her post-internment artistic career in England had to be put mainly on hold for over a decade. She concentrated instead on fine china restoration as a living in London.
Pamina never talked to Ian directly about her experiences in Nazi Germany and during the war. Her hardships during that era are corroborated by her numerous letters from internment, her restitution papers, and her many conversations with a trusted friend in London. The friend described Pamina’s emotions about the internment as “fury” and the impact of the two decades of direct Nazi-induced suffering as “devastating.” And although it became increasingly evident that her beloved mother Bertha had died at the hands of the Nazis during the war (it turned out to have been in January 1943), it took until 1952 for Pamina to obtain confirmation of her mother’s deportation from Belgium to a concentration and extermination camp (Auschwitz) during the Holocaust.
There was additional significant damage to Pamina’s career that was inflicted indirectly by the Nazis. Although she continued to sculpt until age 89, their stealing of almost all her pre-war assets and sculptures, as well as the significant interruption in both her and Rolf’s incomes and the trajectory of their future income, meant that she had to finance her costly craft of sculpture with other income sources of her own. So, from the mid-1950s (when she was 50), she focused on enhancing her skills in painting and drawing and experimenting with different art styles. Her initial classic style evolved, and she veered towards both abstraction and a sculptural treatment of figures. At last, she could build on her pre-war era of success with a new era that began in her mid-60s, with her paintings and drawings subsequently being featured in over 20 exhibitions.