Alice Martha Muehsam

https://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=121494

Alice Muehsam neé Freymark was born on December 22, 1889. Her father, Isidor Freymark, was the director of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, and her mother, Lina née Hirschfeld, came from the wealthy Hirschfeld-Thorsch banking family. Alice Freymark took a keen interest in music, and privately studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition as well as piano with Conrad Ansorge. For a short time she attended the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (State College of Music). In 1911, Alice married the Berlin Correspondent of the Austrian daily Die Neue Freie Presse Kurt Mühsam and became an Austrian citizen.

During and after the First World War, Alice Muehsam was contributing concert and musical reviews and articles on the arts to various newspapers, among others Der Sammler (The Collector), Berliner Börsenzeitung (Berliner Stock-Exchange News), Grunewald-Zeitung (Grunewald News), Neue Berliner Zeitung – Das 8 Uhr Abend-Blatt (New Berliner News - 8 o’clock Evening Edition), and Signale für die Musikalische Welt (Signals for the Musical World). In 1918 Alice Muehsam became a full-time musical critic for Neue Berliner Zeitung - Das 12-Uhr Blatt (New Berliner News - The Noon Edition). This commitment lasted until 1922. In addition, she published essays, reviews of books, and reports on exhibitions and art auctions in various Berlin newspapers.

In 1929 Alice Muehsam began to study at the University of Berlin after passing special examinations since she had previously studied privately and did not have any official certificate from a higher institution. Alice Muehsam received her PhD in classical archaeology and art history in 1936, her dissertation entitled Die Attischen Grabreliefs in Römischer Zeit (Attic Grave Reliefs in the Roman Period).

Although Alice Muehsam finished her studies in Berlin, there was little chance that she would have ever been able to fully pursue her interests in Germany in the late 1930s. All she was allowed to do was to lecture on art history and architecture to the Jewish audience. In January 1940, Alice Muehsam arrived in the United States with another 350 Jewish emigrants from Germany. Based on her dissertation and credentials she received a scholarship for re-training as an art restorer at the Brooklyn Museum. In particular, her restoration of ancient Egyptian and Greek vases and artwork gained prominence and acknowledgement. However, until circa 1945 she was earning her living by cleaning and baby-sitting.

In addition to her restoration and conservation work, Alice Muehsam gave German lessons to Art History students at Columbia University and music students at the Mannes School, for which she prepared a primer German Readings II in 1959. Twenty years after the defense of her dissertation, Alice Muehsam published it in English by the American University of Beirut in 1956 as Attic Grave Reliefs from the Roman Period . In 1966 Alice Muehsam published Coin and Temple through Leeds University Oriental Society, a treatise on ancient Hebrew coins and architectural representations. Together with Norma A. Shatan she also translated a book by Heinrich Wöfflin The Senses of Form in Art (Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl) that was published in 1958.

She died on February 26, 1968 in Spring Valley, New York.