Fishers in boat

After passing his matura examinations in 1923, Johannes Mangels began studying painting, printmaking, and art history at the Berlin School of Art Education under Georg Tappert. He completed these studies in 1929 by passing the state teaching examination. In 1929-1930, he continued his artistic studies under Emil Orlik at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Twice, in 1934 and 1938, he travelled to Rome and Naples, deepening his knowledge of monumental painting. Parallel to his creative work, he devoted himself to teaching as an academic counsellor in grammar schools, folk high schools and teachers' seminaries. After leaving the capital, Mangels was connected both with his native Silesia and Pomerania. In Międzyzdroje, he obtained a post of a drawing teacher in the elite and politically important Baltenschule, an institution intended for children of Germans returning from Courland, often of noble origin. During that time, he exhibited with the Pomeranian Artists' Association as its ordinary member. At the association's 25th exposition at the turn of 1934 and 1935, Mangels presented three oil paintings: Autoportret [The Self-Portrait], Rybacy wciągają łódź do wody [Fishermen Pulling the Boat into the Water], and Wiosenny widok na zalew [A Spring View of the Lagoon]. The last of these was purchased through the private patronage of the mayor for the collection of the Szczecin City Museum, which hosted the show. The painter's work of the time was initially marked by expressionistic tendencies, followed by the New Objectivity style and Italian metaphysical painting, in which the composition in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin is maintained. Already in this early, patriotically-understood Pomeranian scene with fishermen, a particular fondness for sculptural, haptic shaping of the form and - despite the veristic characteristics of the models - stylised, decorative treatment of the motif became apparent.

Szymon Piotr Kubiak