Initiale G. Schäfer mit Herde

1898

President of the Berlin Secession

When the jury of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition, chaired by Anton von Werner, rejected a work by Walter Leistikow, Leistikow called on independent artists to unite, and Liebermann was elected president of the association. He appointed the gallerists Bruno and Paul Cassirer as secretaries, and his fame secured the Secession public interest.

May 1899

First exhibition of the Berlin Secession

Liebermann invited artists from the Munich, Darmstadt and Stuttgart secessions, as well as Arnold Böcklin, Hans Thoma, Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth and the Worpswede painters. The show was an unexpectedly loud success with strong sales, and the heated discussions around it drew public attention to the fine arts; the result was surpassed in 1900.

1907

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.

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.