Lovis Corinth | |
|---|---|
 Corinth in 1887 | |
| Born | Franz Heinrich Louis 21 July 1858 |
| Died | 17 July 1925 (aged 66) Zandvoort, Netherlands |
| Education | Academy of Fine Arts, Munich |
Lovis Corinth (21 July 1858 – 17 July 1925) was a German artist and writer whose mature work as apainter andprintmaker realized a synthesis ofimpressionism andexpressionism.
Corinth studied in Paris and Munich, joined theBerlin Secession group, later succeedingMax Liebermann as the group's president. His early work was naturalistic in approach. Corinth was initially antagonistic towards the expressionist movement, but after a stroke in 1911 his style loosened and took on many expressionistic qualities. His use of color became more vibrant, and he createdportraits andlandscapes of extraordinary vitality and power. Corinth's subject matter also included nudes and biblical scenes.
Corinth was born Franz Heinrich Louis on 21 July 1858 inTapiau, in theProvince of Prussia in theKingdom of Prussia. The son of a tanner, he displayed a talent for drawing as a child. In 1876 he went to study painting in the academy ofKönigsberg. Initially intending to become ahistory painter, he was dissuaded from this course by his chief instructor at the academy, thegenre painter Otto Günther.[1] In 1880 he traveled to Munich, which rivaled Paris as theavant-garde art center in Europe at the time. There he studied briefly withFranz von Defregger before gaining admission to theAcademy of Fine Arts Munich, where he studied underLudwig von Löfftz.[1] The realism of Corinth's early works was encouraged by Löfftz's teaching, which emphasized careful observation of colors and values.[1] Other important influences wereCourbet and theBarbizon school, through their interpretation by the Munich artistsWilhelm Leibl andWilhelm Trübner.
Except for an interruption for military service in 1882–83, Corinth studied with Löfftz until 1884.[1] He then traveled to Antwerp, where he greatly admired the paintings ofRubens, and then in October 1884 to Paris where he studied underWilliam-Adolphe Bouguereau andTony Robert-Fleury at theAcadémie Julian.[2] He concentrated especially on improving his drawing skills, and made the female nude his frequent subject. He was disappointed, however, in his repeated failure to win a medal at theSalon, and returned to Königsberg in 1888 when he adopted the name "Lovis Corinth".[3]
In 1891, Corinth returned to Munich, but in 1892 he abandoned the Munich Academy and joined theMunich Secession. In 1894 he joined the Free Association, and in 1899 he participated in an exhibition organized by theBerlin 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.
Corinth moved to Berlin in 1900, and had a one-man exhibition at a gallery owned byPaul Cassirer. In 1902 at the age of 43, he opened a school of painting for women and married his first student,Charlotte Berend, some 20 years his junior. Charlotte was his youthfulmuse, his spiritual partner, and the mother of his two children. She had a profound influence on him, and family life became a major theme in his art. Another of his students wasDoramaria Purschian.
He published numerous essays on art history, and in 1908 publishedDas Erlernen der Malerei ("On Learning to Paint").[4]
In December 1911, he suffered astroke, and was partially paralyzed on his left side. Thereafter he walked with a limp, and his hands displayed a chronic tremor.[5] With the help of his wife, within a year he was painting again with his right hand. His disability inspired in the artist an intense interest in the simple, intimate things of daily life. In the summer of 1919, for example, he produced a cycle of casual etchings of his family in their country home.[5] It was also at this time that landscapes became a significant part of his oeuvre. These landscapes were set at theWalchensee, a lake in theBavarian Alps where Corinth owned a house. Their lively picturing, in bright colors, tempt many to consider the Walchensee series as his best work.
He painted numerous self-portraits, and made a habit of painting one every year on his birthday as a means of self-examination.[6] In many of his self-portraits he assumed guises such as an armored knight (The Victor, 1910), orSamson (The Blinded Samson, 1912).[7]
Not all of Corinth's works were appreciated in his lifetime: upon learning of his death, Danish criticGeorg Brandes wrote in a letter to his secretary[8] that it was Corinth's "punishment for such a wretched portrait of myself".[9]
From 1915–25, he served as President of the Berlin Secession.[10] In 1920 an anthology of his art-historical writings was published in Berlin.[11] In 1922 his works were exhibited in the Venice Biennale.[12] On 15 March 1921 Corinth received an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Königsberg. In 1925, he traveled to the Netherlands to view the works of his favoriteDutch masters.[1] He caughtpneumonia and died inZandvoort. He was buried atStahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery near Berlin.
Corinth explored everyprint technique exceptaquatint; he favoreddrypoint andlithography. He created his firstetching in 1891 and his first lithograph in 1894. He experimented with thewoodcut medium but made only 12 woodcuts, all of them between 1919 and 1924.[13] He was quite prolific, and in the last 15 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.
The house where Corinth was born is still in the town of Tapiau, which is now calledGvardeysk, and located inKaliningrad Oblast, Russia.
In 1910 Corinth had donated the paintingGolgatha for the altar of the church of his birthplace, Tapiau. At the end of theSecond World War, when theRed Army invaded East Prussia, this painting disappeared without trace. Tapiau was among the few East Prussian places not devastated by the war, which makes it likely that the painting was looted rather than destroyed.
In 1926, a commemorative exhibition of Corinth's paintings and watercolors was presented at theNationalgalerie in Berlin, and an exhibition of his prints and drawings was held at the Berlin Academy.[14] By 1930 the Nationalgalerie acquired several major paintings by Corinth in addition to those already in its collection.[15]
During theThird Reich, Corinth's work was condemned by the Nazis asdegenerate art. In 1937, Nazi authorities removed 295 of his works from public collections, and transported seven of them to Munich where they were displayed in March 1937 in theDegenerate Art Exhibition.[16]
From 8 October - 19 December 1999, theFundación Juan March, Madrid collaborated with theVon der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal on the first retrospective in Spain of Corinth’s work.[17]
In 2007, the German city ofHanover returned a painting by Corinth to the heirs of Jewish collectorCurt Glaser, who sold it in 1933 to fund his escape from the Nazis. The painting from 1914,Römische Campagna [de] (Roman Landscape), was handed to Glaser's heirs, represented by his U.S.-based niece and her daughter.[18]
In 2015 heirs of Holocaust victims Thea andFritz Goldschmidt made a restitution claim for Covinth'sTyrolean Woman with Cat" ("Tirolerin mit Katze") after the painting appeared at theIm Kinsky auction house in Vienna on sale from an anonymous owner.[19] The Austrian auction house refused to say who bought the looted painting. The painting is listed on the German Lost Art Foundation Lostart Database[20] and on the Monuments Men Foundation's "Most Wanted List" of stolen art.[21]
In June 2021, theRoyal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels agreed to return Corinth's 1913Blumenstilleben (Still Life with Flowers) to the heir of Gustav andEmma Mayer, who were persecuted by the Nazis and forced to flee because of their Jewish heritage.[22][23]
Landscapes and still lifes
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Figures and portraits
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Wife, family and self portraits
![Self Portrait with his Wife [Charlotte Berend] and Champagne Glass (1902), oil on canvas, 97 × 107 cm., private collection](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aLovis_Corinth%2c_self_portrait_with_Charlotte.jpg)
History painting
Provenienz: SammlungCarl Steinbarth, Berlin; KunsthandlungHugo Moser, Berlin; Fritz Goldschmidt, Breslau; Privatsammlung; 29.11.2006Lempertz, Köln, Lot 65; 17.06.2008 Kinsky Kunst Auktionen, Wien, Lot 139; Verbleib unbekannt
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