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MaxLiebermann

Max Liebermann was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany.
The son of a Jewish fabric manufacturer turned banker from Berlin, Liebermann grew up in an imposing town house alongside the Brandenburg Gate. He 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).
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. In his work he steered away from religious subject matter, with one cautionary exception being an early painting, The 12-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple With the Scholars (1879). His painting of a Semitic-looking boy Jesus conferring with Jewish scholars sparked debate. At the International Art Show in Munich it stirred up a storm for its supposed blasphemy, with one critic describing Jesus as "the ugliest, most impertinent Jewish boy imaginable." Noted for his portraits (he did more than 200 commissioned ones over the years, including of Albert Einstein and Paul von Hindenburg), Liebermann also painted himself from time to time.
On the occasion of his 50th birthday, Liebermann was given a solo exhibition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, and the following year he was elected to the academy. From 1899 to 1911 he led the premier avant-garde formation in Germany, the Berlin Secession. In his various capacities as a leader in the artistic community, Liebermann spoke out often for the separation of art and politics. In the formulation of arts reporter and critic Grace Glueck he "pushed for the right of artists to do their own thing, unconcerned with politics or ideology". His interest in French Realism was offputting to conservatives, for whom such openness suggested what they thought of as Jewish cosmopolitanism. He did contribute regularly to a newspaper put out by artists during World War I.
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, before he would have been forced to do so under laws restricting the rights of Jews. While watching the Nazis celebrate their victory by marching through the Brandenburg Gate, Liebermann was reported to have commented: "Ich kann gar nicht soviel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." ("I could not possibly eat as much as I would like to throw up.").
In 1909 Liebermann bought property in Wannsee, a wealthy suburb of summer homes on the outskirts of Berlin, and designed a villa with gardens there. From the 1910s until his death, images of the gardens dominated his work. Liebermann recruited also Lovis Corinth, Ernst Oppler and Max Slevogt for the Berlin Secession, together they were the most famous painters of the German Impressionism.
On his 80th birthday, in 1927, Liebermann was celebrated with a large exhibition, declared an honorary citizen of Berlin and hailed in a cover story in Berlin's leading illustrated magazine.
Liebermann died on February 8, 1935, at his home on Berlin's Pariser Platz, near the Brandenburg Gate. According to Käthe Kollwitz, he fell asleep about 7 p.m. and was gone.
Although Liebermann had been famous, his death was not reported in the media, now controlled by the Nazis, and there were no representatives of the Academy of the Arts or the city at his funeral in the Jewish Cemetery on Schönhauser Allee. However, despite official strictures by the Gestapo, more than 100 friends and relatives attended the funeral. Among the mourners were Kollwitz, Hans Purrmann, Otto Nagel, Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Bruno Cassirer, Georg Kolbe, Max J. Friedländer and Adolph Goldschmidt.
In 2005/2006, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and the Jewish Museum in New York mounted the first major museum exhibition in the United States of Liebermann's work.
On 30 April 2006 the Max Liebermann Society opened a permanent museum in the Liebermann family's villa in the Wannsee district of Berlin. The artist's wife, Martha Liebermann, was forced to sell the villa in 1940. On 5 March 1943, at the age of 85 and bedridden from a stroke, she was notified to get ready for deportation to Theresienstadt concentration camp. 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.

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Free hour at Amsterdam orphanage

View from the Birch Avenue toward the Northwest

Portrait of Richard Strauss

Spinner

Stevenstift in Leiden

Beer garden in Munchen

The Artist's Granddaughter at the Table

Woman with goats

The Yacht Race

The Surgeon, Ferdinand Sauerbruch

A Country Brasserie, Brannenburg, Bavaria

Love scene

Rider on the Beach

The Surgeon Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch

Tennis Game by the Sea

Rider on the Beach Facing Left

Man with horse

Jewish quarter in Amsterdam

Self-Portrait with palette

Boys Bathing with Beach Warden

Samson and Delilah, Study

Amsterdam Orphans in the Garden

Portrait of Professor Dr. Carl Bernstein

A Hunter in the Dunes

Woman Plucking Geese

Tree-Lined Avenue with Two Horseback Riders

Parrot caretaker in Artis

Young Boys Bathing at Zandvoort

Self-Portrait with Palette

Schreitender Bauer

Vegetable Vendor - Market Scene

Stevenstift in Leiden, first version

Studio of the painter at the Brandenburg Gate

Carl Duisberg

Swimming boys

Horse races

Shoemaker

Children Bathing in the Sea

Sketch for the Portrait of Friedrich Naumann

Portrait of Miss Hedwig Ruetz

Terrace in the Garden near the Wannsee toward Southwest

Self-portrait

The Weaver

Terrace overlooking the flower garden in Wannsee

Parrot avenue

The Siblings

Children's playground in Tiergarten park in Berlin

On the Way to School in Edam

The Terrace in the Wannsee Garden toward the Northeast

Birch grow

Restaurant De oude Vink

Portrait of Otto Braun

Horserace at Cascina

Portrait of Wilhelm Bode

Heinrich Stahl

Portrait of the publisher Bruno Cassirer

Portrait of Professor Sauerbruch

Old Woman with Cat

Street in the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam

Birch grow

Surf - Marine Study

Village Pond in Etzenhauser - Village Idyll

Table with Pieces of Meat

Man with parrots

Tennis Game by the Sea

Scene in Tiergrten

Siegbert Marzynski

Strolling by the Wannsee Shore

Self Portrait with Brush and Palette

Bathing boys

Potato gatherers

Portrait of Felix Liebermann

Road in Dutch Village

Portrait of Eugen Gutmann

Bathing Boys

Self-Portrait with Brush

Portrait of Dr. Max Linde

Villa

Self Portrait with Brushes and Palette

Study for 'Parrotman'

View of the Roofs of Florence

Ulrich von Wilamowitz Moellendorff

Privy Councilor Benjamin Liebermann

Franz Adickes

Sewing school

Bethmann Hollweg

The Fisherman

Portrait of Mrs. Irene Triesch

Concert in the Opera House

The Terrace in the Wannsee Garden toward the Northwest

Circular Flower Bed in the Hedge Garden

Self Portrait with Kitchen Still LIfe

Recess in the Amsterdam Orphanage - View of the Inner Courtyard, Study

Village Street in MIlitsh - Landscape with Pond

The Garden Bench

Self Portrait

Amsterdam Orphanage

Samson and Delilah

Flower Terrace in the Wannsee Garden, Facing East

Spinning Workshop in Laren

Horseback Rider on the Beach, Facing Left

Peasant Woman with Child below a Door (also known as Woman and Child in the Doorway)

Study Head of a Man (also known as Sephardic Jew with a Prayer Shawl, Facing Left)

Flowers at the Gardener's House toward the Northwest (sketch)

Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam

Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

The Circular Bed in the Hedge Garden with a Woman Watering flowers

The Kitchen Garden in Wannsee, Toward the Southeast

Canal in Edam

Dutch Farmhouse with Woman

Die Enkelin des Künstlers mit ihrem Kindermädchen

Holzhacker im Inneren eines Waldes

The Cutting Garden in Wannsee toward the West, with a Woman Gardener on the Path

A rider on the beach

Flowers at the Gardener's House

Old Men's Home in Amsterdam, Study

Outdoor Garden on the Havel, Nikolskoe

Hospital Garden in Edam

Girl Sewing with Cat - Dutch Interior

Dune near Nordwijk with Child (also known as Dune bei Nordwijk mit Kind)

Corner of a Dutch Village with Washing Hung up to Dry

Country House in Hilversum (also known as Villa in Hilversum)

On the Beach at Noordwijk

Vegetable Market in Amsterdam

Drinking cow

Ropewalk in Edam

The Terrace in the Garden on Wannsee toward the Northwest, with the Villa on the Left

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat

Flowers at the Gardener's House toward the North

Head of an old man

View over the Tall Linden Hedge into the Cutting Garden toward the West

Going to School in Laren - Composition Study

The Terrace in the Wannsee Garden toward the North

Walther Nernst

Munich Beer Garden: The Augustine Brewery

Garden Bench beneath the Chestnut Tree in the Wannsee Garden

Dunes at Noordwijk - Landwards View from a Dune

The Flower Terrace in the Wannsee Garden, Facing Northwest

Terrace in the Garden near the Wannsee toward Northwest

Self Portrait in Smock with Hat, Brush, and Palette

Le Jardin de l'orphelinat communal de la ville d'Amsterdam

Evening at Brandenburg Gate

The equestrienne

Digging for Potatoes in the Dunes at Zandvoort

Promenade on the Dunes at Noordwijk

Restaurant Garden (also known as Beer Garden in Leiden (Zelten?))

Konzert in der oper

The granddaughter of the artist

Allee in sakrow

Arbeiterin im rübenfeld

Birch avenue in the garden wannsee

Garten am wannsee

Merchants of Vegetables in a Canal in Delft

Heimkehrender arbeiter

Judengasse in amsterdam

The granddaughter in basket chair right

Flower pots in the house

BRASSERIE DE CAMPAGNE A BRANNENBOURG (BAVIERE)

Nach dem bade

The hunter in the dunes

At the Elbe (An der Elbe) (plate, folio 21 verso) from the periodical Der Bildermann, vol. 1, no. 10 (Aug 1916)

The seamstress

BATHING Knaben IM MORE

Stroller when at lakeside

Blumenstauden am gärtnerhäuschen nach osten

Die Enkelin des Künstlers mit ihrem Kindermädchen

Professor richard cassirer

Wannsee garden

Albert einstein

Memorial Service for Emperor Frederick at Kösen

The rose garden arbor in wannsee

Three women

After Bathing (Nach dem Baden)

The Painter Lovis Corinth

Kinderportrat

The Publisher Bruno Cassirer

Dorfstrasse mit kindern in zweeloo

The granddaughter of the artist with their children woman

Gartenansicht in wannsee nach nordosten

Gartenlokal an der havel

KIRCHGANG IN Laren

The granddaughter of children with woman at the game

Boy and girl on the village road

Cottage Interior with a Seated Woman

An der oper

DORFSTRASSE Laren

Net mending grooves

Lonely man on a dune

Gattin des kunstlers, martha

Korbflechter

Landschaft mit schafherde

Dune landscape with two figures

Four figure studies

At the table

Hollandischer landweg

After bathing

Badende mit badewarter

Sixteen years old