BERLIN.- In his own lifetime Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) was one of the best-known, most influential figures in Berlin’s modernist circles alongside Max Liebermann, Max Slevogt and Walter Leistikow. The artist had already turned forty when, in 1901, he decided to shift his base from Munich to Berlin. After he arrived in the capital, which had replaced Munich as the hub of modern art in Germany, Corinth put naturalism behind him and became one of the leading modern painters of his day. Looking back, the key to this unprecedented bout of success was obvious to Corinth: “Munich was not the right place for me. It didn’t take off until Berlin.”
Once he settled by the Spree, inspired by French Impressionism and other trends in art, Corinth adopted his distinctive loose brushwork. His unconventional style, which many found provocative at first, was soon accepted as evidence that Germany, too, was capable of spawning innovative artists. In Berlin Corinth’s productivity increased. His oeuvre amounts to about 1,000 paintings, 1,100 prints and countless paper-based drawings.
It is hard to overestimate Corinth’s significance to modernism in Berlin. For a quarter of a century, Corinth’s art was celebrated as modern and became a flagship for the German avant-garde. During the 1920s the Nationalgalerie under director Ludwig Justi built up a sizeable collection, notably many paintings from the late expressive period. Justi was in no doubt about the artist’s national importance: “Lovis Corinth is rated as the greatest German painter of his time.” Even today he is associated with that spontaneous, expressive brushwork, which set its stamp on the future course of art, as witnessed not least by the Neue Wilde, Georg Baselitz and Lucian Freud.
The exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie features about 80 works by Lovis Corinth and about 30 additional works by his students and contemporaries, including paintings and drawings by Charlotte Berend-Corinth, Minna Beckmann-Tube, August Macke and Max Slevogt. Excellent canvases by Corinth from the holdings of the Berlinische Galerie are matched by numerous prime-quality loans from public and private collections. This show is an opportunity for the museum to conduct research into its own collection while building on a successful sequence of monographic exhibitions devoted to modern artists in Berlin, among them Edvard Munch in 2023/24, Ferdinand Hodler in 2021/22 and Lotte Laserstein in 2019.
A fresh start by the Spree
Corinth was born in 1858 in Tapiau in East Prussia (now Gvardeysk, Russia). His parents ran a tannery and an agricultural business. His father financed a solid artistic training that took him to Knigsberg, Munich, Antwerp and Paris. After this the painter settled initially in Munich. In 1901, with his career and modern art stalling in Bavaria, he moved to Berlin.
While Corinth was in Munich, the art scene in Berlin had been evolving rapidly. By the turn of the century it was far more progressive and vibrant than in the Bavarian capital. Thanks to the support of his good friend Walter Leistikow, a leading protagonist of modern art in Berlin, Corinth quickly found his feet in the city. He built a network among well-known figures in public life and the arts, painting many excellent portraits. Soon Corinth was showing frequently in exhibitions and over the years his work sold well. As a member of the major associations of artists he made a name for himself alongside Max Liebermann and Leistikow, especially in the Berlin Secession. His influence on artistic life in the city gradually grew.
Corinth the teacher
Soon after arriving in Berlin Corinth opened a school of painting. He also taught elsewhere in town. Teaching provided him with an initial income. This was a time when private schools offered women in particular a chance to train in art. The art academy in Berlin did not open its doors to women until 1919, a change emphatically welcomed by Corinth. His earliest students included Charlotte Berend, who later became his wife, Max Beckmann’s first wife Minna Tube and the painter August Macke. The exhibition casts new light on who was taught by Lovis Corinth, what methods he used and how his students responded to his teaching. It also describes the opportunities available, especially to women, to pursue a career in art in the early 20th century.
All the world’s a stage!
Corinth had apparently been an eager theatre-goer in Munich, rarely missing a premire. In Berlin he soon found access to theatrical circles through Leistikow. He portrayed writers such as Gerhart Hauptmann and depicted actors – among them Tilla Durieux and Gertrud Eysoldt – in character. In his self-portraits – as Bacchus, a knight or a dervish – Corinth experimented with costumes and roles to explore his own personality. The spontaneity and burlesque theatricality of his idiosyncratic history painting were identified early on as typical traits. Less well-known is that from 1903 he designed costumes and sets for the theatre director and impresario Max Reinhardt. With Corinth Reinhardt launched a series of effective collaborations with Berlin artists. Just how important he was to Reinhardt’s experimental, visually powerful stage directing is evident from the letter of condolence sent by Reinhardt to Charlotte Berend-Corinth after Corinth’s death in 1925: “Max Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater, whose first successes remain linked to the great name Corinth, takes the liberty of expressing its deepest sympathy upon your devastating loss.”
A success story
Over the years Corinth enjoyed widespread popularity in Berlin. He took part in about 80 major exhibitions, including many solo shows, not least at the Berlin Secession and in the city’s leading art galleries. He was the only artist to whom the Nationalgalerie devoted two entire retrospectives in rapid succession: in 1923 at the Kronprinzenpalais, also known as the “Gallery of the Living”, and in 1926, the year after his death, in the main building, where the commemorative event was inaugurated by a solemn opening. Ludwig Justi called the memorial exhibition a “pan-German affair”. The Berlin Secession and the Akademie der Knste also organised tribute exhibitions after Corinth’s death. In February 1933, shortly after the Nazis assumed power, Justi restructured the Kronprinzenpalais and dedicated a ground-floor room to Corinth and Max Slevogt. Justi’s decision endorsed Corinth’s importance to modern art within the context of a nationally framed art history.
Corinth and the Nazis
Until the Nazi take-over Corinth held a firm place in the canon of modern art by virtue of his expressive late work. In 1933, however, Justi had to relinquish his post as director of the Nationalgalerie. During the “Decadent Art” campaign more than 350 paintings, drawings and prints by the artist, mostly from his final, expressive period, were seized from public German collections.
This exhibition and the catalogue are supported by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in particular the Alte Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie and Kupferstichkabinett, and by the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin: Berlin Museum.
Exhibition catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published in both German and English by Hatje Cantz.
256 pages, 250 illustrations
Museum Edition: 38 €
ISBN: 978-3-940208-94-1 (EN)
Book Trade Edition: 44 €
ISBN: 978-3-7757-6348-6 (EN)
