Max Liebermann: My House in Wannsee, 1926, Private Collection

Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany

February 28 – June 7, 2026

Max Liebermann blazed the trail for the first artistic avant-garde in Germany. With his early and pioneering connection to France, he initiated a renewal of painting that was to have a lasting impact on German Impressionism. With over 110 works from more than sixty international collections, Avant-Garde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany showcases the development of Impressionism in Germany in its full scope.

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Max Liebermann, Biergarten „De Oude Vink“ bei Leiden , 1905, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1925 — Max Liebermann, *Biergarten „De Oude Vink“ bei Leiden*, 1905, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1925

At the center is Liebermann, who played a decisive role in the internationalization of the German art world as a painter, collector, and president of the Berlin Secession. At the same time, the exhibition also demonstrates how a new generation of artists, inspired by French modernism, further developed motifs such as pulsating cityscapes, images of leisure and nature, child portraits, and theater scenes. Alongside key works by Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, Max Slevogt, and Fritz von Uhde, the show rediscovers the work of other important artists such as Philipp Franck, Dora Hitz, Gotthardt Kuehl, Sabine Lepsius, Maria Slavona, and Lesser Ury.

Lesser Ury, Elevated Subway Station at Bülowstrasse , 1922, Private collection, southern Germany — Lesser Ury, *Elevated Subway Station at Bülowstrasse*, 1922, Private collection, southern Germany

Lovis Corinth, Woman Reading , 1911, Private collection — Lovis Corinth, *Woman Reading*, 1911, Private collection

„To show an exhibition on Impressionism in Germany offers the opportunity to take a fresh look at works from our own art history in an international context. We hope our visitors will experience joy and inspiration from their encounter with the luminous visual worlds of Max Liebermann and his comrades-in-arms—paintings that strikingly demonstrate the painterly skill and emotional power of Impressionism in Germany.“

Ortrud Westheider, Director and Curator, Museum Barberini

The show includes loans from important collections in Germany and abroad such as the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the Belvedere in Vienna. With works by over twenty artists, the exhibition illuminates the broad spectrum of German Impressionism and extends chronologically from the 1880s to the 1930s. It sheds light on the impulses emanating from France and their influence before and after World War I. Technological progress, social modernization, and a new mobility gave rise to unprecedented artistic freedom. With its cityscapes and scenes of leisure and nature, the painting of Impressionism, honed in the open air, exemplifies and reflects this epoch of artistic innovation.

Max Liebermann, Samson and Delilah , 1902, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main — Max Liebermann, *Samson and Delilah*, 1902, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

Special emphasis is also placed on the long-neglected contribution of women artists to the development of German Impressionism. Even in the conservative German Empire, artists like Charlotte Berend-Corinth, Emilie von Hallavanya, Dora Hitz, Sabine Lepsius, and Maria Slavona were able to assert themselves and create works that now enlarge our understanding of the movement. Another new aspect is the focus on the inspiration German artists garnered in France and the way they applied these influences in their own painting.

Maria Slavona, Still Life with Red Background , 1911, Stiftung Schlösschen im Hofgarten Wertheim, Wertheim am Main — Maria Slavona, *Still Life with Red Background*, 1911, Stiftung Schlösschen im Hofgarten Wertheim, Wertheim am Main

Sabine Lepsius, Double Portrait of the Sisters Cornelia (Born in 1921) and Charlotte Hahn (Born in 1926) , 1932, Jüdisches Museum Berlin — Sabine Lepsius, *Double Portrait of the Sisters Cornelia (Born in 1921) and Charlotte Hahn (Born in 1926)*, 1932, Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Along with the permanent exhibition of 115 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the Hasso Plattner Collection, the program of the Museum Barberini also showcases international Impressionism. In 2020, the museum presented the exhibition Impressionism in Russia: Dawn of the Avant-Garde, followed in 2023 by Clouds and Light: Impressionism in Holland.

Philipp Franck, Wannsee , 1915, Private collection, Frankfurt am Main — Philipp Franck, *Wannsee*, 1915, Private collection, Frankfurt am Main

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue developed out of a scholarly symposium presented at the Museum Barberini on December 11, 2024. The exhibition was organized in cooperation with the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, and was on view there from October 3, 2025 to February 8, 2026.

The exhibition stands under the patronage of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Exhibition Views

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Centered on the painter Liebermann, the Museum Barberini presents the works of the German avant-garde—restless, sensual, and charged with political intensity; the exhibition is nothing short of magnificent. The Barberini offers us a history lesson of disquieting beauty.

MAZ

The exhibition does not merely trace Liebermann’s pioneering role. Nor does it simply evoke a longing for Paris—hardly self-evident, and by no means easily realized in the fraught aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1871–72. Far beyond Liebermann himself, the show unfolds a sweeping panorama of the art of his era, astonishing in both its scope and its range.

Tagesspiegel

Painter, collector, connoisseur of France: the Museum Barberini presents Max Liebermann as a cultural intermediary between the German Empire and French Impressionism.

tip

Radiant light, scenes of everyday life, and motifs painted en plein air: Impressionism shaped the course of art at the close of the nineteenth century. The Museum Barberini now devotes a major exhibition to this movement under the title “Avantgarde: Max Liebermann and Impressionism in Germany.”

rbb

In Germany, Impressionism was regarded as an avant-garde current. The emerging modernism gave voice to resistance against the nationally inflected cultural policies of the conservative Empire. Academic studio painting predominated—history paintings rendered in somber tones and animated by heroic themes. The Impressionists, by contrast, turned their attention to scenes of everyday life and to landscapes suffused with light.

SZ.de

Max Liebermann brought Impressionism to Germany.

NZZ

The exhibition traces the beginnings of Impressionism in Germany through the work of Max Liebermann and his contemporaries. Their campaign on behalf of this new aesthetic was long regarded with suspicion—and frequently met with outright hostility—on German soil.

FAZ

More than radiant worlds of color: with over 110 works drawn from more than 60 international collections, the Museum Barberini dedicates one of the most comprehensive exhibitions to date to Impressionism in Germany.

stern.de

They often painted out of doors in order to capture fleeting atmospheres and the play of light—the Impressionists. As the foremost German representative of the movement, Max Liebermann returned countless times to his villa and garden on Berlin’s Wannsee as a motif—much as Claude Monet repeatedly depicted his water-lily pond in Giverny. The Museum Barberini now presents a new exhibition devoted to German Impressionism in the orbit of Liebermann.

zeit.de

With a major exhibition, the Museum Barberini pays tribute to the artist’s profound influence on German Impressionism. The painters represented here—renowned figures alongside those less familiar—ventured boldly beyond the stifling conventions of the Wilhelmine Empire. They embraced a newfound freedom and vitality, seeking it not only in the liberated gesture of the brushstroke but also in modern life itself: on the beaches and waterways, in beer gardens, and amid the streets, markets, and stages of the burgeoning metropolis.

Berliner Morgenpost

The exhibition is unequivocally a tribute to Impressionism. At the same time, it reveals the extent to which German and French artists stood together in their struggle for modernity, understanding the avant-garde not as a national phenomenon, but as a distinctly European stance—an artistic conviction that transcended borders and redefined the cultural landscape of their time.

Deutschlandfunk Kultur

One of the most outstanding collections of Impressionism can be found at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam. Currently, the museum is spotlighting the pioneer of German Impressionism: Max Liebermann. More than 110 works vividly illustrate his formative role in shaping the artistic avant-garde—truly an impressive exhibition.

radioeins

The exhibition traces the development of German Impressionism and its meteoric rise across eight chapters. Among the motifs inspired by French models are the streets and cafés of the modern metropolis, brought to life, for example, by Lesser Ury in his evocative depictions of nocturnal Berlin. Sailboats gliding across the Wannsee, painted by Philipp Franck, or the garden restaurants along the Havel captured by Max Liebermann, reflect the burgeoning leisure culture of the bourgeoisie. German Impressionists were particularly captivated by the theatrical—by the drama unfolding on stage, by modern dance, and by the productions of Max Reinhardt. Artists such as Lovis Corinth, Max Slevogt, and Liebermann sought to capture the fleeting nature of these performances on canvas.

epd