Isidorus (Is.) Maria Cornelis van Mens

(Berlicum 25-08-1890 – 05-07-1985 Oosterhout)

Dutch painter, book cover designer drawer graphic artist and printmaker. Son of Berlicum notary Eugenius Ferdinandus Desiderius van Mens (1843-1931) and Ida Maria Johanna Cornelia Murraij (1867 - after 1962).

Studied in Antwerp and Brussels art academies. Lived and worked Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Utrecht, Brussels and after 1921 in Casteau near Mons (Bergen in Belgium). Travelled extensively to North Africa, France, Spain, Bai and China. As an artist best known for his oriental paintings and etchings.  

Worked also for publisher Valkhoff & Co in Amersfoort, designing book covers for the immensely popular Cissy van Marxveldt youth books series

Julius Edmund Robert  Nitsche

 (Breslau 16-02-1882 - 1965 Munich)

Painter, illustrator, arts & crafts artist, interior- book cover and typographic designer, architect (interior design), graphic artist and printmaker. Worked for the illustrious “Jugend” Magazine. Married to Eva N.N.
Known to have worked in Breslau, Munich and Leipzig. Created several type-face (“Zierbuchstaben“) like “Unger Fraktur Initalen” for J. Klinkhardt 1910. Created a colour woodblock book plate (ex libris) for painter and paint manufacturer Fritz Behrendt* (1863-1946).

Known from a poster (“Plakat” 68 x 85 cm) for a 1911 Munich “Grosse Algemeine Hundeausstellung” with a barsoi (Russian greyhound). Also known from a bookplate for “Eva und Julius Nitsche”, also with a barsoi.  
Works represented in Offenbach Klingspor Museum (spec. in book design and typography).

Dresslers KHB 1930: Munich, Türkenstrasse 97. Member BDG. (board member), RvbK.,DWB., DGfchrK.,KB., “die Unabhängigen”.

Possibly related to: Nitsche, Hinrich (Breslau 14-02-1845 - 08-11-1902 Tharandt), zoologist in Breslau and son-in-law to geographer Oscar Ferdinand Peschel (Dresden 1826 - 1875 Leipzig).

* Behrendt, Friedrich (Fritz)     (Memel 31-10-1863 - 13-02-1946 Fuerstenfeldbruck)

Painter and paint manufacturer. (Also Behrendt). Studied in Königsberg academy and in Karlsruhe academy under landscape painter and illustrator Hermann Baisch (1846-1894). Member of the Munich Secession 1903.
Friend of fauvist painter Oskar Moll* and said to have together developed “lichtbeständige” Behrendt-Farbe: a brand of light stable colour pigments (artist oil/based paint) known as “Berendt’schen Farben”. For the manufacturing of their products he owned a “Bitumen-Fabrik” in Grafrath near Fuertstenfeldbruck referring to the oil based paints he created.
Married to textile artist Olga Schierlitz (Hamburg 1867-1958) the daughter of a Hamburg merchant.

They had two daughters Hedda and Irmgard Mastaglio-Behrendt (Munich 23-01-1905 - 1990) studied in Munich under Angelo Jank (1868-1940), Karl Caspar (Friedrichshafen 1879 - 1956) and in the Munich painting school of Moritz Heymann (1870-1937). Fleeing from Silesia to Schleswig-Holstein at the ending of WW-II she lost all her work.  

* Moll, Oskar    (Brzeg/Brieg, Prussia, now Poland 21-07-1875 - 19-08-1947 Berlin)

Fauvist painter who studied under Corinth, Leistikow. In Paris became acquainted in the Café de Dome circles meeting Matisse and Picasso. He started, with his wife Margarethe and their friend painter Hans Purrmann (1880-1966) the short lived “Académie Matisse”. Purrmann travelled to Paris in 1906 becoming a student and personal friend of Henri Matisse ((1869-1954). Appointed as professor in Breslau Academy succeeding August Endell (1871-1925). His work was declared “entarted”, displayed and confiscated by the Nazis after which they led a secluded life in Berlin. Their art collection consisting of numerous paintings, also by Matisse, Léger, Bracque and Picasso was destroyed in a 1943 allied bombing raid on Berlin. Their home destroyed they tried to find refuge in his home town but were forced to return to Berlin by the advancing Red-Army.
He was married to painter author and sculptor Marg Moll, born as Margarethe Haeffner (Mühlhausen 1884 - 1979 Munich).