Kate Mangan (, Foster; also subsequently known as Kate Kurzke) was a British artist, actress and journalist.

Early life and career

Katharine Prideaux Foster was born in Sedgely, Staffordshire, in 1904. After leaving school, Kate attended the Slade Art School, before moving to Paris where she worked as a fashion model. She was frequently seen in the Café Royal with her admirer, Augustus John, or dining out at the

Tour Eiffel The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "'' ...

.''The Beautiful Kate Foster (Obituary)'', Hampstead and Highgate Express, 04Nov1977. It was also in Paris where she met

Sherry Mangan Sherry Mangan (27 June 1904, Lynn, Massachusetts, USA – 24 June 1961, Rome, Italy) was an American writer, journalist, translator, editor, and book designer. He was a Marxist political activist in the Trotskyist movement from 1935 to 1961. Durin ...

, the Irish American scholar and poet, in 1924. They married in 1931 and separated three years later. She then met a refugee German artist, Jan Kurzke, with whom she travelled to Spain in 1934. She divorced Sherry in 1935. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Jan was one of a group of volunteers went out to Spain to join the International Brigades and fought in defence of Madrid, alongside John Cornford, Bernard Knox and

John Sommerfield John Sommerfield (25 June 1908 – 13 August 1991) was a British writer and left-wing activist known for his influential novel ''May Day'', which fictionalised a Communist upheaval in 1930s London. Sommerfield volunteered to fight in the Spanis ...

. Kate followed him out to Spain, working first as a correspondent for the ''Christian Monitor'' and later in the Government Press office, reporting to Constancia de la Mora and Luis Rubio Hidalgo. While she was working in Spain, Kate met a number of leading writers including W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Ernest Hemingway; journalists including Lawrence Fernsworth, Hugh Slater, Kitty Bowler and

Milly Bennett Milly Bennett (May 22, 1897 – November 7, 1960) (born Mildred Jacqueline Bremler, also known as Mildred Mitchell and Mildred Amlie) was an American journalist and writer who covered political conditions in China, social conditions in the Soviet ...

; photographers including

Walter Reuter Walter Reuter (b. January 4, 1906 - March 20, 2005) was a Mexican photojournalist of German origin. Reuter arrived to Mexico in 1942, after fleeing the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and the defeat of the Republicans in Spain. Having started his c ...

, Robert Capa and

Gerda Taro Gerta Pohorylle (1 August 1910 – 26 July 1937), known professionally as Gerda Taro, was a German Jewish war photographer active during the Spanish Civil War. She is regarded as the first woman photojournalist to have died while covering the ...

; International Brigade volunteers such as Tom Wintringham and

Bob Merriman Robert Frederick Merriman (born 22 August 1935) is a former Australian cricket official and local government mayor. Merriman played club cricket with Melbourne Cricket Club and Geelong Cricket Club. He was president of the Geelong Cricket Asso ...

; doctors such as Norman Bethune and nurses such as

Patience Darton Patience Darton (married name: Patience Edney; 11 August 1911 in Orpington, England – 6 November 1996 in Madrid, Spain) was a British nurse and political activist active during the Spanish Civil War. Darton was born into a middle-class family ...

. After Jan was seriously injured by shrapnel, Kate tracked him down to a hospital in Murcia and managed to get him out of Spain to convalesce with friends in Paris. She then returned to her work in the Press Office in Valencia.

Personal life

After returning from Spain, Jan and Kate briefly reunited and their daughter, Charlotte Kurzke, was born in 1940. Jan was interned on the Isle of Man at the outbreak of the Second World War. They then went their separate ways, Kate and Charlotte living in a house in Steeles Road, Hampstead. She taught art at a London secondary school and later became an examiner for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate. She was a founder member of the Hampstead Arts Council in 1945 and remained an active participant until her death in 1977. Her sister Margaret Greville Foster, with whom she was close, later became a writer under the name

Greville Texidor Margaret Greville Foster (1902 — 20 August 1964), best known by her pen name Greville Texidor, was an English fiction writer, notable for her work written while living in New Zealand from 1940 to 1948. After traveling the world as a performer ...

Memoir

Kate’s memoir, ''Never More Alive: Inside the Spanish Republic'', written shortly after her return to England, was recently published for the first time with a foreword by Professor Sir Paul Preston.''Never More Alive: Inside the Spanish Republic,'' 2020. ISBN 978-1-913693-03-9

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mangan, Kate 1904 births 1977 deaths People from Sedgley Actresses from the West Midlands (county) Artists from the West Midlands (county) English women journalists English women artists