Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann was a pioneer of Modernism in Germany, with a style that shifted from Naturalism to Impressionism over the course of his lifetime. In the era that spanned the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, Liebermann, born in Berlin as the son of a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer, became not only one of the most influential figures in Berlin’s art scene, but founded the Berlin Secession movement, and established himself as a collector who played an important part in establishing Impressionism as a major phenomenon in 20th-century art.

Trained at the Academy of Arts in Weimar, with frequent visits to Paris and the Netherlands, Liebermann’s early style was naturalistic. In the 1870s, he became increasingly interested in rural motifs and his paintings were often criticised by his contemporaries for their resolute realism and quotidian subjects. In 1884, Liebermann moved to Berlin, where he turned against the artist establishment of the Prussian Academy, and founded the Berliner Secession in 1898, a group of artists who rejected the dominant themes then prevailing in art universities.

He had, since the 1880s, fallen increasingly under the influence of French Impressionists, reflected in his work by shimmering, bright colours and dynamic compositions. In 1909, Liebermann and his family purchased a plot of land at the Alsen villa colony at Wannsee, where they built themselves a summer home. Here, Max Liebermann’s practise thrived, as he rapidly rose to meet his bucolic, scenic surroundings with his Impressionistic techniques moving towards a precursor to Abstraction. Rather like Manet, Liebermann was beguiled by his garden, which he had designed, and would ultimately create over 200 oil paintings inspired by it, as well as countless drawings and pastels.

As well as being synonymous with German Impressionism, alongside Max Slevogt and Lovis Corinth, Liebermann was also a noted portraitist, with notable subjects including Albert Einstein and the Reich President of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg. On Liebermann’s 50th birthday, he was honoured with a solo exhibition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin where in 1920, he was appointed President, an exceedingly proud moment for the artist. However, his final years were dogged by poor health and the rise of the Nazis. Having resigned his Presidency of the Prussian Academy in 1930, due to illness, he withdraw himself from public life due to the increased anti-Semitic sentiment at large. He died in Berlin in 1935, a passing the Nazi regime attempted to downplay lest it become a flashpoint for protesting activists and fellow artists, such as his long-term supporter, Käthe Kollwitz.

Liebermann’s legacy remained understated until the late 1970s, when a new generation of artists and collectors revived interest in his work. The Max Liebermann Society was founded in 1995 with the aim of preserving the memory of the artist and his work, and after the fall of the Wall, the Max Liebermann Haus at Pariser Platz in Berlin, which had been destroyed during World War II, was reconstructed. In 2006, Liebermann’s summer house villa at Wannsee was opened as a museum, to preserve and perpetuate the memory of the artist.