Liebermann, Max

born July 20, 1847, Berlin, Prussia

died Feb. 8, 1935, Berlin, Ger.

German painter and etcher.

The realism and simplicity of his first exhibited painting, Women Plucking Geese (1872), were in striking contrast to the Romantic, idealized art then in vogue. In the summer of 1873 he lived in Barbizon, where he became acquainted with the Barbizon school of painters; as a result of their influence, he brightened his palette and helped initiate the German school of Impressionism. In the 1880s he found his subjects in the orphanages and asylums for the old in Amsterdam and among the peasants and urban labourers of Germany and The Netherlands. As a supporter of such academically unpopular styles as Impressionism and Art Nouveau, he founded the Berlin Sezession (1899) but later became president of the conservative Berlin Academy.

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▪ German artist

born July 20, 1847, Berlin, Germany

died February 8, 1935, Berlin

      painter and printmaker who is known for his naturalistic studies of the life and labour of the poor. He was also the foremost proponent of Impressionism in Germany.

      After studying under the painter Carl Steffeck from 1866 to 1868, Liebermann attended the Weimar Art School from 1868 to 1872. The straightforward realism and direct simplicity of his first exhibited picture, Women Plucking Geese (1872), presented a striking contrast to the romantically idealized art then in vogue. This picture earned him the epithet “disciple of the ugly.” Liebermann spent the summer of 1873 at the village of Barbizon, near Paris, where a group of landscape painters known as the Barbizon school had been working since the 1830s. There he became acquainted with one of the leaders of the Barbizon school, Jean-François Millet (Millet, Jean-François), and studied the works of Camille Corot (Corot, Camille), Constant Troyon, and Charles-François Daubigny (Daubigny, Charles-François).

      In 1878 Liebermann returned to Germany, living at first in Munich and finally settling in Berlin in 1884. From 1875 to 1913 he spent summers painting in The Netherlands. During this period he found his painting subjects in the orphanages and asylums for the elderly in Amsterdam and among the peasants and urban labourers of Germany and The Netherlands. In works such as The Flax Spinners (1887), Liebermann did for German painting what Millet had done for French art, portraying scenes of rural labour in a melancholy, yet unsentimental, manner.

      After 1890 Liebermann's style was influenced by the French Impressionist painters Édouard Manet (Manet, Édouard) and Edgar Degas (Degas, Edgar). As Liebermann focused on Impressionist concerns of light and colour, subject matter became less important for him. However, he maintained a connection to the narrative tradition of German art, and thus, unlike the French Impressionists, he never became completely detached from subject matter. In 1899 Liebermann founded the Berliner Sezession, a group of artists who supported the academically unpopular styles of Impressionism and Art Nouveau. Despite his association with the antiestablishment Sezession, he became a member of the Berlin Academy, and in 1920 he was elected its president. In 1932 the Nazis forced him to resign from his position.

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