THE HAGUE.- ‘Don’t forget to come to Scheveningen as soon as possible,’ Jozef Israels wrote to Max Liebermann (1847-1935) in March 1904. Between 1870 and 1914 the German artist spent a number of summers in the Netherlands with his friend Israels. Together with Israels' son Isaac he painted the fashionable lifestyle emerging in that period: outdoor cafés teeming with patrons enjoying the sun, riders and bathers on the beach. By that time Liebermann was a celebrated artist both in his native Germany and abroad, famous for his paintings with ‘sunspots’. In 1920 he was even appointed director of the academy in Berlin, a position he would have to relinquish towards the end of his life, when Hitler came to power. Yet he continued to be a favourite with the public in Germany, even after his death. But his work is less well known in the Netherlands. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, with partner the Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee museum, is therefore presenting a major retrospective featuring highlights like Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage (1881-1882) and The Parrot Man (1902), painted at Amsterdam’s Artis zoo.

Enemy in France
In 1873 the young German painter Max Liebermann moved from Weimar to Paris. At that point in time, the French capital was a magnet for many European artists, but for a German this was not an obvious step so soon after the Franco-Prussian War. Three years before, the Germans had been victorious in the conflict, and many French still felt great bitterness towards the ‘enemy’. Liebermann’s move is therefore evidence of his great courage. He followed his heart to the cradle of realism, a movement he had first encountered in Weimar. Without ever having turned a sod, in Paris and in Barbizon the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer threw himself into painting simple country labourers. He saw his great hero Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) only once. Nevertheless, Liebermann produced a series of works whose subjects were taken directly from the work of the French artists, including Woman Gathering Potatoes (1874) and Potato Harvest in Barbizon (1875).

Friendship in the Netherlands
Max Liebermann’s first visit to the Netherlands was a short one, but still the country managed to steal his heart. He found his own Barbizon in places like Delden, Dongen, Zweeloo and Scheveningen, places where time had stood still. Lagging far behind industrialised nations like France, Britain and Germany, the Netherlands made painters and writers long for times past, before the steam train had replaced the horse-drawn barge. The Netherlands inspired Liebermann’s best work, which won him the recognition he craved at the Paris Salon. His Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage (1881-1882) was praised from Berlin to Paris.

Dutch painter Jozef Israels was also impressed by Liebermann’s work. At an exhibition, he tapped Liebermann – twenty years his junior – on the shoulder. This marked the beginning of a very close friendship. They spent several summers together in Scheveningen. There was no other place in the Netherlands that was so symbolic of the advent of leisure. At first, Liebermann mainly painted the fishing village, but soon his realistic depictions of the simple life made way for sunny pictures of the newly fashionable lifestyle, featuring tennis players, bathers and riders on the beach. In the same period, zoos became a popular attraction all over Europe, and Artis zoo in Amsterdam became a favourite subject of Liebermann’s.

Famous at home
Although the Germans initially found Liebermann’s work too French, around 1900 his fame began to grow at home. In 1898 he co-founded the Berlin Secession, an artists’ association in the mould of the Munich Secession and the Vienna Secession. Liebermann was its first chairman. His success was at its height around the turn of the century; at that time his paintings were fetching more even than those of Claude Monet. Shortly afterwards his work underwent a further development. While, in his highly praised painting of the Amsterdam orphan girls, one can almost count the bricks in the wall, from the 1890s onwards, under the influence of French Impressionism, his brushwork became much looser, as can be seen in Birches on the Banks of Wannsee, towards the East. This new approach eventually made him the figurehead of German Impressionism.

Sunny paintings in times of war
The outbreak of the First World War put an end to internationally-oriented artists’ freedom of movement. Liebermann could no longer travel to the Netherlands. However, the conflict was welcomed from Berlin to London. Many saw it as a chance to finally break with the past. Liebermann also allowed himself to be swept along by misplaced feelings of heroism, but soon became disillusioned when he became aware of the horrors of the war. In 1920 the new government appointed him director of the academy in Berlin. Liebermann’s international outlook, which his fellow countrymen had mistrusted before, was now a great advantage. Thanks to his large international network he managed to liberalise the academy, one of the last bulwarks of cultural conservatism. Despite the political and social tensions, Liebermann remained a sunny Impressionist in his work. He continued to paint to an advanced age, though he did withdraw more and more to his villa by Wannsee lake. He did however see the torchlit nighttime procession to celebrate Hitler’s seizing of power in January 1933 from his house on Pariser Platz in Berlin. As a Jewish artist, his position as honorary chair of the academy became untenable in the final years of his life.

Max Liebermann died at his home on Pariser Platz on 8 February 1935. For a man who had played such a prominent role in Berlin, his funeral was a very modest affair. At that moment it was not possible to fully appreciate a Jewish artist who had painted Dutch scenes in the style of the French Impressionists. After the war, his work was reappraised in Germany, and he became a great favourite with the public. His masterpieces are therefore rarely loaned by German collections. Many German institutions have however made an exception for our exhibition Max Liebermann – Impressions of Summer. Liebermann’s Free Hour at the Amsterdam Orphanage will for the first time be leaving Frankfurt since it gained a permanent home there at the city’s Städel Museum. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag is very grateful to all who have provided works on loan for this exhibition.

Publications
A book of the same name has been published to accompany the exhibition. Besides reproductions of Liebermann’s beautiful work, it also contains a wealth of historical images (published by WBOOKS, €24.95). For his youngest fans there is the latest in the series of children’s art books published by the Gemeentemuseum in collaboration with Leopold Publishing. De zee van meneer Max (available only in Dutch) was written by Koos Meinderts and illustrated by his wife Annette Fienieg.