BONN.- In cooperation with the Hamburg Kunsthalle, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany is showing a comprehensive retrospective on Max Liebermann (1847–1935).

Max Liebermann plays an outstanding role in the history of art and culture in Germany. Not only his artistic oeuvre but also his cultural and political activities make him one of the leading pioneers of modern German painting. Max Liebermann‟s unique position between the end of 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century continues to have an impact on current developments in painting.

A selection of over 100 works which represent the artist‟s various phases of creative development is to add new aspects to the assessment of Liebermann‟s work. Over the past two decades, the focus was primarily on specific topics within his work (outdoor painting, Realism, Impressionism, garden pictures). However, in this exhibition Liebermann is presented as a consistent champion of artistic approaches in the late 19th and early 20th century. This interpretation not only challenges the artist‟s traditional classification as an “Impressionist” but also the concept of Realism itself.

Liebermann‟s unconventional treatment of topics and stylistic development is portrayed in 14 chronologically arranged sections which are made up of paintings and works on paper. The array of exhibits reaches from early outdoor paintings and the tranquil works from the 1870s and 1880s, to scenes depicting modern leisure activities around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, and also to commissioned portraits and self-portraits from the time of the Weimar Republic. The exhibition ends with Max Liebermann‟s brilliant late work which includes the garden pictures he painted in over 200 variations between 1910 and 1933.

As a long time president of the Berlin Secession and subsequently of the Prussian Academy of Arts, Liebermann was one of the most influential promoters of Modernism in Berlin during the time of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Influenced by his appreciation of the Old Dutch Masters and the School of Barbizon and his penchant for the French Impressionists whose works he also collected, Liebermann created a stylistically and thematically varied oeuvre.

Over 50 public and private lenders from Germany and abroad are participating in this
exhibition