Artist Eleanor Manheim Dies On 91st Birthday

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik officiated at the funeral service of Eleanor Rampell Manheim, 91, on Monday, July 30 at 3 p.m. at Gutterman's Parkside Memorial Chapel, 98-60 Queens Blvd., Forest Hills.

Manheim died July 26, on her 91st birthday. She was a member of the National Art League, based in Douglaston, and her paintings won prizes in numerous exhibitions mounted by that organization. Many were displayed at the funeral service.

Last October, despite advanced Parkinson's Disease, Manheim exhibited paintings and drawings of the Throgs Neck Bridge in an art show mounted by a group of artists in the Le Havre development in Whitestone. As an original Le Havre (then Levitt House) tenant, she had depicted the bridge construction from start to finish from the vantage point of the windows of her beloved waterfront apartment.

After a successful mid-life career as a realtor and owner of Realty of Douglaston, Manheim devoted herself entirely to fine art. She was occasionally invited to speak on matters of design for the Long Island Builders Institute.

During the Great Depression, which coincided with her early career in art, Manheim designed the windows of a store called the Corsetorium. Despite earning the then princely sum of $55 a week, she soon quit out of boredom, complaining that the boss could talk of nothing but corsets and bras. Textile design and free-lance illustration was more to her liking and she was much in demand.

Multi-talented in the arts, Manheim produced a television dance program in that medium's pioneering days in the 1940s. She herself did acrobatic dancing and while still a schoolgirl won a prize at a weekly talent contest in Brooklyn. The usual winner, who had been out ill, warned Manheim never to upstage him again. It was Jackie Gleason, who always sang Irish songs and packed the audience with his friends.

Regretting the lack of a college education, Manheim declared at age 70, "I finally realized that nobody was holding me back but myself," and enrolled as a freshman in Queens College. Majoring in art, which she herself had taught to others, she was in her junior year before severe arthritis prevented her from earning a degree.

Manheim is survived by a brother, Edward Rampell, and a daughter, Lynn Manheim, who did not follow her artistic example but instead became an activist, writer and publicist for animal rights causes.