About the work

Jean Mannheim’s painting of Point Happy shows the sand dunes near Indian Wells and La Quinta before the site was enveloped by housing after the 1960s. The site is located near the intersection of Highway 111 and Washington Street, where the ridgeline in the painting is still easily recognized. The painting represents one of the artist’s best-known subjects, which also included Box Canyon, the Santa Rosas, the Salton Sea and Mount San Jacinto.

The work is housed in the original hand-carved frame with a label still attached from Poulsen Galleries of Pasadena, established in 1927. The gallery was opened by Emmanuel and Gamelia Poulsen. Emmanuel was a European-trained artisan with master status in the family trade of gilding and elaborate, hand-crafted picture frames.

While Poulsen remains an active and highly successful gallery today, the early records of artwork sales, which likely included Mannheim’s painting of Point Happy, were lost in a fire during the 1980s.

About the artist…

Jean Mannheim (1863-1945), a German-born painter, was among the earliest wave of artists to paint California’s desert. Beginning in 1919 and for most of following two decades, Mannheim was a frequent visitor to the area around Palm Springs where he found pleasure painting in the solitude of the desert. As he got older, he found the accessibility and warmth suited him well. His desert paintings vary from sculpted lines of purple mountain ridges, to rugged side canyons with lonely roads, to shifting sands and desert flora.

Mannheim was living in the Arroyo Seco neighborhood of Pasadena during the period when he painted “Happy Point.” His neighborhood was one of two major artist colonies for California’s now famous desert artists, the other being Artists’ Alley in Alhambra. Mannheim was one of the most respected artists of his day, which considering he counted Benjamin Brown and William Wendt among his many friends is a remarkable testament to his status.

The period from 1909 into the 1920s was particularly productive, and his works were broadly exhibited at California Art Club exhibitions, the twin “Panama” expositions of 1915 and 1916, numerous solo exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum, and elsewhere.

As the Pasadena art scene flourished in the 1920s, unlike many of his contemporaries who were represented by prominent art galleries, Mannheim remained independent and relied on his associations with the California Art Club, the Pasadena Society of Artists, and the Laguna Beach Art Association for exposure, as well as exhibits at area city halls, hotels, libraries, bank lobbies, and even auto dealerships. His annual home studio exhibitions garnered a great deal of attention from local art critics and the general public. Mannheim remained a prolific painter during the 1930s depression era, and despite being in his seventies he maintained an active exhibition schedule.

For several decades Mannheim taught a number of the area’s young artists including Kathryn Leighton, Sam Hyde Harris, Harry Tillcock, F. Carl Smith, and Grace Vollmer. As he grew into his 70s, he spent more and more time in the Coachella Valley, relying on friends for rides because like fellow desert painter Agnes Pelton, Mannheim didn’t drive.

In 1945, following a stroke, Mannheim’s health took a turn for the worse and he died at his home in Pasadena on September 7, 1945 at the age of eighty-three.

Mannheim’s participation in major exhibitions included the National Academy (New York), Salon (Paris), Munich Art Gallery, Belgium Art Gallery, Museum of Natural History (New York), Artist’s Cooperative Gallery (New York), San Francisco Institute of Art, Los Angeles Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Stanford University Art Gallery, Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition (Seattle, 1909, Gold Medal), Panama-Pacific International Exposition (San Francisco, 1915), Panama-California Exposition (San Diego, 1915, Gold & Silver Medals), California-Pacific International Exposition (San Diego, 1935-36), Golden Gate International Exposition (San Francisco, 1939), California State Fair (Gold Medal), Arizona State Fair (Gold Medal), and London School of Art (First Prize). 

His works are held by the Carnegie Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Irvine Museum, Long Beach Museum of Art, The Museum of Art at Brigham-Young University, Mobile Museum of Art, The National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian Institute, and Oakland Museum of California. 

Primary sources used for the artist’s biography and photographs: www.jeanmannheim.com, with details of the artist’s life written by Richard Reitzell, author of “From a Versatile Brush: The Life and Art of Jean Mannheim,” accessed 17 October 2020; Smoketree Trio: New Books on Desert Artists, by Ann Japenga; Jean Mannheim (1861-1945): Cultivating Colour and Versatility in California by Richard W. Reitzell; and AskArt.

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