Maria Innocentia Hummel

Maria Innocentia Hummel (born Berta Hummel; 21 May 1909 – 6 November 1946) was a German religious sister of the Third Order of Saint Francis and an artist. She is noted for her paintings which were the basis for Hummel figurines.

Early life Born in Massing, Germany, as Berta Hummel, one of the six children of Adolf and Victoria Hummel, living above her father's dry goods store. As a child Berta showed creative talent, and developed a reputation in the village as the local artist. She was a cheerful, active girl, who loved the outdoors and winter sports. Her father encouraged her artistic talents and, at age 12, enrolled her in a boarding school of the Sisters of Loreto in Simbach am Inn, about 30 kilometres away. Hummel continued to grow in her abilities, and after graduation in 1927 she enrolled in the prestigious Academy of Applied Arts in Munich, where her talent and skills developed.

Hummel was a devout Catholic and instead of the standard student housing, she chose to live in a Catholic residence run by religious sisters. While living there, she made friends with two members of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Sießen in Bad Saulgau who were also studying at the Academy. The congregation focuses on teaching, and gives great emphasis to the role of art in education. After Berta graduated in 1931 with top honors, she chose to follow a religious calling that she had felt for some time and applied to enter that congregation, and was admitted in April 1931 as a postulant. Berta made one final visit to her family home in late May, spending two weeks with them. On 22 August, she was admitted as a novice and received the habit of the congregation and the religious name Maria Innocentia.

Significantly, Hummel also drew sketches that contained the Star of David, a dangerous theme in those times. She portrayed angels in gowns covered with slightly skewed six-pointed stars. She also designed a series of Old and New Testament symbols for the convent chapel in 1938–39. She symbolized the juncture of the two Testaments by designing a cross with a menorah before it.

Hummel was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1944 and was sent twice to a sanatorium in Isny im Allgäu. She returned to the convent after five months, just before the region was liberated by the Free French Forces. She did not recover, and died on 6 November 1946, aged 37. She was buried in the convent cemetery.

Innocentia's sister, Centa Hummel, established the Berta-Hummel-Museum in the family home in Massing. Centa died September 2011, just before her 100th birthday, and the management of the museum passed to her son. One of the children depicted in her work, Sieglinde Schoen, established The Hummel Museum in New Braunfels, Texas, in the United States, which displayed about 280 of Hummel's original pieces. These pieces had been stored in Switzerland by a private collector during the War. The museum discontinued as a venue of Hummel's work in 2001.