Max LiebermannGerman, 1847–1935Samson and Delilah
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Harvard Art Museums
Cambridge, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
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- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2012.95
In the catalog
Sources
- Harvard Art Museums
- Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Meanwhile, in the life of Max Liebermann
The whole life1907
Exhibition for his 60th birthday at the Berlin Secession
The Secession staged a large exhibition in honour of its president's jubilee, and it was a great success; the honoree himself spent his 60th birthday in Noordwijk, hiding from his admiring public.
1909–1910
The Wannsee villa — his “castle on the lake”
In 1909 Liebermann bought a plot on the shore of Lake Wannsee, where the architect Paul Otto August Baumgarten built a country house modelled on Hamburg patrician villas; he first moved in during the summer of 1910. The large garden, which he designed together with Alfred Lichtwark, dominated his painting for the rest of his life.
1910
The Secession board rejects 27 Expressionist paintings
The generational conflict between Impressionists and Expressionists came to a head when the board under Liebermann rejected 27 Expressionist canvases: the former rebel who had fought academicism now appeared a conservative spokesman. That same year the Secession showed Picasso, Matisse, Braque and the Fauves for the first time.
1910
The conflict with Nolde and the birth of the New Secession
Emil Nolde accused Liebermann of hostility to progress and of dictatorial power within the Secession; a general assembly voted 40 to 2 to expel Nolde, although Liebermann himself voted against the expulsion. The split could not be stopped: the New Secession was formed, and its first exhibition on 15 May was titled “Rejected by the Secession Berlin 1910”.
spring 1911
Fleeing to Rome from the Secession crisis
In the spring of 1911 Liebermann fled to Rome to escape the Secession crisis; criticism of his leadership style was growing ever louder.
16 November 1911
Steps down as president of the Secession
After criticism of his leadership that came even from his own ranks, Liebermann resigned; Max Beckmann, Max Slevogt and August Gaul left with him. The general assembly elected him honorary president and entrusted the leadership to Lovis Corinth — a decision that foreshadowed the end of the Secession and the decline of German Impressionism.
