Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann was the leading German Impressionist. His early work shows working people in plain, honest light: Dutch orphans, net menders, goose pluckers. Later his brushwork loosened and brightened into beach scenes, bathing boys, riders by the sea and the flowering garden of his own villa.

Born in Berlin, he trained in Weimar and Paris and spent many summers in the Netherlands, which gave him many of his subjects. From 1898 to 1911 he led the Berlin Secession, supporting modern art in Germany. He was also a much sought after portrait painter. From 1910 he spent his summers at his villa on the Wannsee, now the Liebermann Villa museum, and painted its garden many times. His work is in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and in museums across Germany.

In Bathing Boys and At the Swimming Hole, look at how the sunlight on bare skin and water is laid down in quick, broken touches.