Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann (1847–1935) was born in Berlin, the son of a Jewish banker, and had private lessons from Carl Steffeck before studying at the art school in Weimar under the Belgian history painter Ferdinand Pauwels. Periods in Paris, Barbizon and the Netherlands followed, and after some years in Munich he returned to Berlin in 1884, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He became one of the leading figures of Impressionism in Germany, led the Berlin Secession from 1899 to 1911 and was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts from 1920, resigning in 1933 when the academy stopped exhibiting Jewish artists. The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple, begun in December 1878 from sketches made in the synagogues of Amsterdam and Venice, provoked antisemitic attacks when it was shown in Munich, and Liebermann repainted the figure of the young Jesus in response. The overpainting was only discovered in 1993. The single work here is The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple.