Lovis Corinth - Biography

Painter, born in Tapiau, Germany. He studied at Königsberg, Munich, and in Paris. From conventional nude, landscape painting, and especially portraiture, his style became markedly Impressionistic, while later work verged on Expressionism. From 1900 he lived in Berlin, and with Max Liebermann and Slevogt led the secession movement against the Berlin academic school, becoming its president in 1915.

Lovis Corinth (July 21, 1858-July 17, 1925) was a German painter whose mature work realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.

Biography

Corinth was born in Tapiau, East Prussia. He studied in Paris and Munich, joined the Berlin Secession group, later succeeding Max Liebermann as the group's president. Corinth was initially antagonistic toward the expressionist movement, but after a stroke in 1911 his style loosened and took on many expressionistic qualities.

Corinth showed an early talent for drawing and in 1880 he attended the Munich Academy, which rivaled Paris as the avant-garde art center in Europe at the time. There he was influenced by Courbet and the Barbizon school as they were interpreted by the Munich artists Wilhelm Leibl and Wilhelm Trübner. In 1891, Corinth returned to Munich, but in 1892 he abandoned the Munich Academy and joined the very first Sezession. In 1894 he joined the Free Association, and in 1899 he participated in an exhibition organized by the Berlin Secession. These nine years in Munich were not his most productive, and he was perhaps better known for his ability to drink large amounts of red wine and champagne.

In 1900 he moved to Berlin, where he had a one-man exhibition at a gallery owned by Paul Cassirer.

In 1911 he suffered a stroke, and was partially paralyzed on his left side. In 1925, he traveled to the Netherlands to view the works of his favorite Dutch masters.

Corinth explored every print technique except aquatint; Corinth was quite prolific, and in the last fifteen years of his life he produced more than 900 graphic works, including 60 self-portraits. The landscapes he created between 1919 and 1925 are perhaps the most desirable images of his entire graphic oeuvre.