German Impressionist Painter, 1847-1935 Max Liebermann (July 20 1847 ?C February 8 1935) was a German painter and printmaker in etching and lithography. 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?C71), 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 Liebermann (1857-1943, see portrait by Anders Zorn). Together with Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, Liebermann became an exponent of German Impressionism. 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. "Boys Bathing" Neue PinakothekFrom 1899 to 1911 he led the premier avant-garde formation in Germany, the Berliner 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 could not eat as much as I would like to vomit.") On 30 April 2006, the Max Liebermann Society opened a permanent museum in the Liebermann family's villa in Berlin-Wannsee. The artist's wife, Martha Liebermann, was forced to sell the building in 1940. In 1943 she committed suicide in the family home, Haus Liebermann, hours before police came to deport her to Theresienstadt concentration camp.  Related Paintings of Max Liebermann :. | Man with Parrots | Plucking Geese | The Birch-Lined Avenue in the Wannsee Garden Facing Southwest | A farmer with his cow | Kohlfeld im Wannseegarten nach Westen |
Related Artists:
Ammi Phillips
(1788-1865), a self-taught New England portrait painter, is regarded as one of the most important folk artists of his era. Phillips was born in Colebrook, Connecticut, and began painting portraits as early as 1810. He worked as an itinerant painter in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York for five decades. In 1924, a group of portraits of women, shown leaning forward in three-quarter view and wearing dark dresses, were displayed in an antique show in Kent, Connecticut. The anonymous painter of these strongly colored works, which dated from the 1830s, became known as the "Kent Limner," after the locality where they had come to light. Stylistically distinct from those of the "Kent Limner," a second group of early-19th-century paintings emerged after 1940 in the area near the Connecticut?CNew York border. Attributed at the time to an unknown "Border Limner," these works, dating from the period 1812?C1818, were characterized by soft pastel hues, as seen in the portrait of Harriet Leavens, now in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. It was not until 1968 that Ammi Phillips's identity as the painter of both groups of portraits was established. Additional works were identified, showing the artist's transition from the delicate coloration of the Border period to the bold and somber works that followed.
Marstrand, Wilhelm
Danish, 1810-1873 Danish painter and illustrator. He was a student of C. W. Eckersberg at the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen (1825-33). His art reflects his constant observation of the world around him, in particular middle-class society, and the narrative element dominated his pictures of crowds in the city streets. Throughout his life he sought inspiration from literature and the theatre. In his early genre painting Moving Day Scene (1831; Niv?, Nivaagaards Malsaml.) it was the popular novelty of vaudeville that interested him. The October Festival (1839; Copenhagen, Thorvaldsens Mus.) reveals how Marstrand's five-year stay (1836-41) in Italy opened his eyes to the classical ideal of beauty. It was, however, an ideal that found little response in contemporary Denmark, and he turned towards a more anecdotal and humorous approach. In Scene of Country Life (1843; Copenhagen, Kon. Dan. Kstakad.), painted as a set subject for the Kunstakademi, Marstrand took as his theme a scene from Erasmus Montanus, a play by the 18th-century Danish poet and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Thereafter Holberg's comedies provided an inexhaustible source that satisfied Marstrand's need to pursue his investigations of human character. Family life similarly interested him throughout his career, as in his Scene of Daily Life (1857; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst). Such group portraits as The Waagepetersen Family (1836; Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst) show an equal concern to depict the quiet details of Danish domestic life. Marstrand continued to travel abroad in search of inspiration. His stay in Venice in 1853-4 was particularly important; his studies there of the great Venetian painters improved his understanding of the handling of colour, as seen clearly in the many historical and religious paintings of his last years. Of particular interest is his mural decoration of Christian IV's chapel in Roskilde Cathedral (1864-6) with scenes from the life of the Danish monarch. Marstrand's paintings have a certain facetiousness which often obscures a much deeper philosophical content. For this reason, it is his drawings that arouse more admiration.
Jerry Barrett
1824-1906