Bertha Helena Henriette (Berthe) Edersheim (marriage name also Edersheim-Meurs; born 5 September 1901 in The Hague; died 26 April 1993 in Eindhoven) was a Dutch painter. [1][2]
Partner Josepha Mendels
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Albert Cuypstraat 25, 1072 CT Amsterdam, Netherlands
Bertha Helena Henriette (Berthe) Edersheim (marriage name also Edersheim-Meurs; born 5 September 1901 in The Hague; died 26 April 1993 in Eindhoven) was a Dutch painter. [1][2]
Edersheim grew up in a wealthy, Jewish-assimilated Hague family as the middle of three children. Her mother Hebertina Carolina "Hubje" Edersheim came from the van den Bergh family, her father David Edersheim was co-director of the paper mill S.V.H. (Simons-Veerkade-Haag). Her older brother Maurits died at the age of seventeen. Leni, her younger sister became a violinist. [3] She probably attended the Higher Civic School for Girls in The Hague. [3] She was not allowed to study afterwards, but pursued her professional desire by renting a studio with friends and occasionally taking painting lessons, including with Charley Toorop. [2] In 1922 she met the Austrian expressionist painter Marie-Luise von Motesiczky, with whom she lived together in Paris in the winters of 1925 and 1926. The two shared a studio[4] and studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére in Montparnasse, with Roger Bissiére and André Lhote[5][3]. She also spent some time at Zwaluwnest, an institution for disadvantaged Jewish girls in The Hague, teaching English and painting classes. There she met the writer Josepha Mendels, with whom she was to combine a lifelong friendship and civil partnership. After meeting the painter Harmen Meurs in Paris (in the studio of Jacques Lipchitz) in 1930, she moved from The Hague to Amsterdam in October 1931 to become his assistant and marry him in 1937.[6] Like him, she joined the artists' association De Onafhankelijken, a Dutch equivalent of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris.[7] From 1933 to 1936, she regularly participated in the group's annual or semi-annual exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum.[8] During the Second World War and the German occupation, Berthe Edersheim, as a Jewish partner, escaped the worst reprisals and deportation. Parts of her family also survived the war.[9] In 1958 she separated from her husband and after the divorce moved to Paris with Josepha Mendels,[10] with whose she lived until her death. She toured India and found inspiration for a series of paintings that were also exhibited. [11] She made long trips, went to Morocco in 1978 and learned Russian in the 1960s. [12] After Josepha Mendels was taken to a nursing home by her son in Eindhoven after an operation in 1992, which had severely affected her, her family soon also arranged for Berthe Edersheim to find an apartment nearby. Three months after her move, she died on April 26, 1993. Her ashes were scattered in a small funeral in a forest. [13][14]
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