Jeanne Mandello (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 18 October 1907 – Barcelona, Spain, 17 December 2001), born Johanna Mandello, was a German photographer of Jewish descent who became a naturalised Uruguayan citizen. She is considered one of the pioneers of modern and experimental photography in Latin America.
In 1926, she moved to Berlin to study photography at the Lette-Verein school, where she completed her training in 1928. During this period, she undertook an internship at the studio of Paul Wolff and Alfred Tritschler, where she became familiar with the use of the Leica camera. Influenced by New Vision photography, the Bauhaus and the European avant-garde movements, she began experimenting with framing, light and the expressive possibilities of the photographic medium. In 1929, she began her professional career in Frankfurt, where she opened her own studio.
In January 1934, following the Nazis' rise to power, she went into exile in Paris with her husband, photographer Arno Grünebaum, with whom she developed an extensive professional practice under the name Mandello. During this period, she worked mainly in fashion and advertising photography, incorporating experimental techniques associated with Surrealism and Man Ray's photographic explorations.
The German occupation of France forced her into exile for a second time. In 1941, she arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, where she continued her professional career and expanded her photographic investigations into portraiture, landscape, nature and architecture. Her work incorporated techniques such as solarisation, photograms and photomontage, exploring the relationships between light, geometry, abstraction and composition. During these years, she photographed works of modern Uruguayan architecture, including buildings by architect Rafael Lorente Escudero, and portrayed cultural figures such as Joaquín Torres García, Rafael Alberti and Jules Supervielle.
One of her best-known photographs, taken in 1947, depicts the poet and painter Rafael Alberti beside the Panel de la amistad (Panel of Friendship), painted by Alberti himself at his residence, La Gallarda, in Punta del Este, designed in 1945 by architect Antonio Bonet Castellana. This image serves as the starting point for the book Alberti, Bonet, Mandello. Poeta y pintor, arquitecto, fotógrafa. Historias en torno a La Gallarda (2019), written by architect Rafael Lorente Mourelle and Alicia Cagnasso. The publication reconstructs the careers and cultural relationships of these three exiles, as well as the circle of artists and intellectuals represented in the mural, and contributes to recovering the significance of Mandello's work in Uruguay's cultural and architectural history.
In 1952, she presented an exhibition alongside Arno Grünebaum at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio). In 1953, she separated from her husband and moved to Brazil, where she continued her photographic practice. Between 1959 and 1960, she settled in Barcelona with her second husband, journalist Lothar Bauer, where she resumed her professional activity and remained until she died in 2001.
Her work has gradually been rediscovered through research and exhibitions, including Mandello. Fotografías 1928–1997, presented in Barcelona in 1997, and Imágenes de una fotógrafa exiliada, held in Montevideo in 2012. In 2021, the French Embassy in Uruguay and the Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo established the Jeanne Mandello Prize, dedicated to promoting contemporary photographic creation.
