Max Liebermann

German painter Max Liebermann was Jewish and probably the greatest German Impressionist ever, who enjoyed a strong international reputation during his lifetime. He studied in Berlin and Weimar, The Netherlands, Paris (1873-78), and Venice. Via München, he returned to Berlin in 1884.

In 1892 the “Association of the XI” was established, from which the “Berlin Secession” emerged. Liebermann soon became the leader and first president of the group, resigning in 1911. In 1907 on the occasion of his 60th birthday, a special exhibition of the Berlin Secession was held in his honor. The city of Berlin made him an honorary citizen on his 80th birthday. From 1920-32 Liebermann served as president of the Berlin Academy of Arts. He was regarded as representative of the liberal arts policy of the Weimar period.

Liebermann attracted the criticism of the nationalist parties, especially the Nazis. In 1933, he was - like so many – banned from academic life, and in 1935 died at his home, having already withdrawn from the art scene and public life two years earlier. When his wife Martha (1857-1943) was to be deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943, she took her own life with sleeping pills.

Polo Players (full title: Polo Players in Jenisch Park) was painted in oil on canvas as early as 1903. It measures 71 x 102 cm. Until 1941, it was owned by the Hamburg Kunsthalle and since then it has been in private hands. It is illustrated in the catalog of the art exhibition.

In 1909, Liebermann created the lithograph Horse Race (22 x 34 cm). An oil painting with this motif also dated from the same year. It is unclear which other graphics by Liebermann were exhibited. In the international exhibition catalog, there is only a general reference: 33 a-f Oeuvres graphiques. In the German catalog, in addition to Boy with Horse (lithograph), Horse Racing I and II (lithographs), Horse Racing III (etching), and Polo Players (etching) are listed. Boy with Horse is probably the lithograph (48 x 37 cm) on the vellum cover of the portfolio Max Liebermann. Sieben Radierungen (Seven Etchings), published in 1909 by Bruno Cassirer (1872-1941) in an edition of 200 copies with a text by Oscar Bie (1864-1938). These etchings, however, today on display in the Kunsthalle Bremen, for instance, have only partly a sporting reference.