Max Liebermann
Brought Impressionism to Germany, led the Berlin Secession, and was driven out of his own academy.
Max Liebermann was born in Berlin in 1847 into a wealthy Jewish industrial family and trained in Weimar and Paris, where the Barbizon painters and Manet shaped him. His early work is of labour — women plucking geese, a Dutch orphanage, net menders — painted with a plainness that was called ugly at the time. He led the Berlin Secession from 1899 and became president of the Prussian Academy of Arts. The late garden paintings at his villa on the Wannsee are the best-loved part of the work. Forced to resign in 1933, he died in 1935; his widow took her own life in 1943 to avoid deportation.
Provenance between 1933 and 1945 is unavoidable with Liebermann, both because of the family's persecution and because so many works were in Jewish collections that were looted; restitution claims remain active and this is the first question in any sale. The Wannsee garden paintings and the beach scenes lead the market. He was a very fine etcher and lithographer with a large graphic output, catalogued by Schiefler. Pastels and drawings are numerous. The market is principally German.
If you own a work by Max Liebermann
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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