Max Liebermann was a pioneer of German Impressionism. Before the First World War, his infusion of naturalism and modernist sensibility attracted numerous important commissions, and he became the most in-demand portrait artist for Berlin high society.
Liebermann was an enthusiastic and well- travelled disciple of modern art and brought the diverse aesthetic ideas he encountered abroad back to Germany. He spent formative periods in cities such as Paris and Amsterdam, absorbing the lessons of the Barbizon school, Realists like Jean-François Millet, and the French Impressionists. His exposure to these movements enriched his practice, and he sought to import and adapt these diverse aesthetic currents to the German context This, however, came to present issues for the artist: in Paris (at the time the art world’s epicentre) his style was deemed ‘not French enough’; the Secessionist Impressionists felt he was too accommodating of the transgressive Expressionists; the Expressionists found him too conservative.
In addition to artistic tensions, Liebermann’s career was increasingly undermined by the socio-political climate. As a prominent Jewish artist in early twentieth-century Berlin, he was subjected to the growing wave of antisemitism that pervaded German society. Despite his public acclaim and institutional standing - he was the president of the Prussian Academy of Arts for over a decade - his Jewish identity rendered him a target of suspicion and hostility. As nationalist and right-wing sentiments intensified, Liebermann faced the erosion of his professional opportunities and personal security. By the end of his life, he found himself largely marginalised in a cultural landscape he had once helped to define.
