Max Liebermann in 1904

Max Liebermann (July 20, 1847 – February 8, 1935) was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany.

Biography[link]

The son of a Jewish businessman from Berlin, Liebermann first studied law and philosophy at the University of Berlin, but later studied painting and drawing in Weimar in 1869, in Paris in 1872, and in the Netherlands in 1876–77. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), Liebermann served as a medic with the Order of St. John near Metz. After living and working for some time in Munich, he finally returned to Berlin in 1884, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was married in 1884 to Martha Marckwald (1857–1943, see portrait by Anders Zorn).^[1]

He used his own inherited wealth to assemble an impressive collection of French Impressionist works. He later chose scenes of the bourgeoisie, as well as aspects of his garden near Lake Wannsee, as motifs for his paintings. In Berlin, he became a famous painter of portraits; his work is especially close in spirit to Édouard Manet.

Ins Schwimmbad, late 1870s, Dallas Museum of Art

From 1899 to 1911 he led the premier avant-garde formation in Germany, the Berlin Secession. Beginning in 1920 he was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1933 he resigned when the academy decided to no longer exhibit works by Jewish artists. While watching the Nazis celebrate their victory by marching through the Brandenburg Gate, Liebermann was reported to have commented: "Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte" ("I cannot eat as much as I would like to vomit").

Together with Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, Liebermann became an exponent of German Impressionism.

Commemoration[link]

On April 30, 2006, the Max Liebermann Society opened a permanent museum in the Liebermann family's villa in the Wannsee district of Berlin.^[2] The artist's wife, Martha Liebermann, was forced to sell the villa in 1940. On March 5, 1943, at the age of 85 and bedridden from a stroke, she was notified to get ready for deportation to Theresienstadt concentration camp.^[3] Instead, she committed suicide in the family home, Haus Liebermann, hours before police arrived to take her away. There is a stolperstein for her in front of their former home by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.^[3]

Gallery[link]

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  Boys Bathing - Neue Pinakothek.

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  Martha Liebermann by Anders Zorn.

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  Allée in Overveen, Netherlands.

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  Ich lasse dich nicht, Du segnest mich denn (Genesis 32:27.) Liebermann's grave in Berlin

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Max Liebermann

• Gallery of Liebermann's paintings at zeno.org
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Liebermann, Max". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

v t e Impressionism Originators Frédéric Bazille Eugène Boudin Gustave Caillebotte Mary Cassatt Paul Cézanne Edgar Degas Armand Guillaumin Édouard Manet Claude Monet Berthe Morisot Camille Pissarro Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jules Ernest Renoux Alfred Sisley Patrons Gustave Caillebotte Henry O. Havemeyer Ernest Hoschedé Dealers Paul Durand-Ruel Georges Petit Ambroise Vollard American Artists William Merritt Chase Frederick Carl Frieseke Childe Hassam Willard Metcalf Lilla Cabot Perry Theodore Robinson John Henry Twachtman J. Alden Weir Other artists Lovis Corinth Max Liebermann Max Slevogt Konstantin Korovin Valentin Serov Francisco Oller Laura Muntz Lyall Władysław Podkowiński Nazmi Ziya Güran Chafik Charobim Ernest Jean-Marie Millard de Bois Durand Other media Music Literature French Impressionist Cinema See also Decorative Impressionism Post-Impressionism