Studien zu weidenden Schafen

1886

Back at the Academy's exhibition after eight years

Liebermann showed “Recreation Time in the Orphanage”, “Old Men's Home in Amsterdam” and “The Grace” — a painting of a Dutch peasant family at prayer, made at Israëls's suggestion during the honeymoon. The influential critic Ludwig Pietsch called him a great talent and an outstanding representative of modernism.

May 1887

Salon of 1887: muted applause and Menzel's praise

The Laren painting was received in Paris with muted applause, while Adolph Menzel called Liebermann the only painter “who paints people, not models”. Around the same time the critic Emil Heilbut, in his “Study on Naturalism and Max Liebermann”, called him “the boldest forerunner of the new art in Germany”.

1888

Year of the Three Emperors: a memorial to Friedrich III

Liebermann spent the spring of 1888 in Bad Kösen and, shaken by the death of Friedrich III, painted an invented scene, “Memorial Service for Emperor Friedrich III in Bad Kösen”. Despite his left-wing views he felt a bond with the Hohenzollern monarchy.

1889

World's Fair in Paris: Liebermann on the jury

Invited with Gotthardt Kuehl and Karl Köpping to the jury of the exhibition marking the centenary of the French Revolution, he obtained the consent of the Prussian minister Goßler and proposed presenting German painting through Menzel, Leibl, Trübner and von Uhde; the press accused him of serving the idea of revolution, but Menzel took his side. Liebermann received a medal of honour and was admitted to the Société des Beaux-Arts, but declined the Legion of Honour on the Prussian government's recommendation.

1890

A first commissioned portrait: Mayor Petersen

Thanks to Alfred Lichtwark, Liebermann received commissions from Hamburg: a pastel, “Kirchenallee in St. Georg”, and his first portrait commission, Mayor Carl Friedrich Petersen, painted in the manner of Frans Hals. The mayor was furious at the naturalism and the apparent carelessness in the rendering of his official robes; Lichtwark, too, thought the portrait a failure.