Henni Lehmann stumbling block

Henni Lehmann - the daughter of a Berlin doctor - married the lawyer Karl Lehmann in 1888. As a self-confident personality, she asserted her love of painting. However, like many other female painters of her time, she had to study art at private schools, which she criticized in a paper in 1913 for their lack of professionalism. In 1907, she had a summer residence built for her family on Hiddensee, which she planned with great care to ensure that the house blended into the island's landscape. The result was an architectural style that echoed the reed-covered fishermen's huts. Henni Lehmann was very socially committed throughout her life. Her summer house on Hiddensee also became a social meeting place. In 1914, together with Pastor Arnold Gustavs and the teachers Berg and Gutzmann, she founded the "Natur- und Heimatschutzbund Hiddensee".

"In 1922, Henni Lehmann founded the "Hiddensoer Künstlerinnenbund". The baker Schwartz's barn next to her house was converted into the "Blue Barn" exhibition building. Here, artists from all over Germany were able to show their works to tourists visiting Hiddensee. Unfortunately, neither a guest book nor an exhibition overview has survived from this period. Only the names of the artists are known. In 1934, Henni Lehmann sold the Blue Barn to Elisabeth Niemeier. She also organized exhibitions in the building, which had long since become famous. For Henni Lehmann, a converted Jew, life on the island became increasingly difficult. The village of Vitte, where her summer house was located, advertised in its village brochure from 1922 with the sentence "Jews are not accepted here". The island of Hiddensee had become anti-Semitic. In 1937, Henni Lehmann - suffering from cancer - took her own life." (Source - Hiddensee - Die besondere Insel für Künstler by Ruth Negendanck p. 56).

Henni Lehmann's love of the landscape and flora of the island of Hiddensee is inevitably reflected in her paintings, of which unfortunately only a few have survived to this day.