Max Liebermann, the son of a wealthy Berlin Jewish family, was a dominant figure in the German art world in the late-Imperial- and Weimar periods. He initially painted Dutch peasants in a realist style, then led the antiestablishment naturalist movement in the 1880s and 1890s, and, after 1895, worked for many years in an impressionist style. He was famous for his portraits and his scenes of bourgeois life. Liebermann helped found and served as the president of the progressive Berlin Secession from 1898 to 1910 and was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts from 1920 until Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, when Liebermann was forced to resign his position.
The Dutch Sewing School is from a period in Max Liebermann’s career when Dutch peasants were a common subject in his work. The sewing school seen here was in an orphanage in Amsterdam. While he…
Ben-Zvi’s early paintings focused on ecology and nature. He often depicted human and ecological disasters, calling attention to the fragility of human and animal life. The birds and insects featured…
Beatriz Mendes Beneviste (Doña Gracia the Younger) was born in 1540 in Antwerp. She was the niece of the wealthy and influential Doña Gracia Nasi. In 1544, the family, New Christians of Portuguese…