Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin and became the leading German Impressionist. His early works show workers and orphanage children in the Netherlands, where he spent many summers, in a realist manner; later he painted lighter scenes of beaches, beer gardens and his garden on the Wannsee. He led the Berlin Secession from 1898 and was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts. He resigned from the Academy in 1933 after the Nazis came to power and died in Berlin two years later; his summer villa on the Wannsee is now a museum.