This is the first English-language examination of the German impressionist painter Max Liebermann, whose long life and career spanned nine decades. Through a close reading of key paintings and a discussion of his many cultural networks across Germany and throughout Europe, this study by Marion F. Deshmukh illuminates Liebermann’s importance as a pioneer of German modernism.

Although Max Liebermann (1847–1935) began his career as a realist painter depicting scenes of rural labor, Dutch village life, and the countryside, by the turn of the century, his paintings had evolved into colorful images of bourgeois life and leisure that critics associated with French impressionism. During a time of increasing German nationalism, his paintings and cultural politics sparked numerous aesthetic and political controversies. His eminent career and his reputation intersected with the dramatic and violent events of modern German history from the Empire to the Third Reich. The Nazis’ persecution of modern and Jewish artists led to the obliteration of Liebermann from the narratives of modern art, but this volume contributes to the recent wave of scholarly literature that works to recover his role and his oeuvre from an international perspective.

Frank Tallis, acclaimed author of the Edgar Award–nominated Vienna Secrets, returns with a new and masterfully woven tale full of deceit, love, and rich mystery. Set in fin de siècle Vienna, it’s perfect for fans of Boris Akunin, Alan Furst, and David Liss. Ida Rosenkranz is top diva at the Vienna Opera, but she’s gone silent for good after an apparent laudanum overdose. Learning of her professional rivalries and her scandalous affairs with older men, Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt and Dr. Max Liebermann suspect foul play instead. Their investigation leads them into dark and dangerous conflicts with Gustav Mahler, the opera’s imperious director, who is himself the target of a poison pen campaign, and Karl Lueger, Vienna’s powerful and anti-Semitic mayor. As the peril escalates, Rheinhardt grows further into his role as family man, while Liebermann finds himself at odds with his inamorata, Amelia, who’s loosening both her corset and her tongue in the new feminist movement. PRAISE FOR FRANK TALLIS’S VIENNA THRILLERS “[A] captivating historical series.”—The New York Times Book Review “[A] riveting read . . . with well researched and wonderfully imagined period detail.”—The Guardian (U.K.), on Vienna Twilight “Chock-full of tantalizing elements.”—The Austin Chronicle, on Vienna Secrets “Engrossing . . . immensely satisfying.”—The Boston Globe, on Fatal Lies

Vienna, 1904. The body of a man—still sitting in a chair—is discovered in an abandoned piano factory on the outskirts of the city. He has been shot dead but his face has been horribly disfigured with acid, making identification impossible. In front of the body are three chairs positioned conspicuously in a straight line. Who were the former occupants? Had they sat in judgement and pronounced a sentence of death? Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt calls on his good friend, Doctor Max Liebermann—psychiatrist and disciple of Sigmund Freud—to assist in an investigation that draws them both into the shadowy and sexually unconventional world of fringe political activism.

A dogged police inspector and an insightful young psychiatrist match wits with depraved criminal minds in this acclaimed mystery series set in Freud’s Vienna. In glittering turn-of-the-century Vienna, brutal instinct and refined intellect fight for supremacy. The latest, most disturbing example: the mysterious and savage death of a young cadet in the most elite of military academies, St. Florian’s. Even using his cutting-edge investigative techniques, Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt cannot crack the school’s closed and sadistic world. He must again enlist the aid of his frequent ally, Dr. Max Liebermann, an expert in Freudian psychology. But how can Liebermann help when he a crisis of his own: handling his conflicted and forbidden feelings for two different women, one a former patient? As the case unfolds, powerful forces will stop at nothing to keep a dark secret.

Max Liebermann: Modern Art and Modern Germany is the first English-language examination of this German impressionist painter whose long life and career spanned nine decades. Through a close reading of key paintings and by a discussion of his many cultural networks across Germany and throughout Europe, this study by Marion Deshmukh illuminates Liebermann?s importance as a pioneer of German modernism. Critics and admirers alike saw his art as representing aesthetic European modernism at its best. His subjects included dispassionate depictions of the rural Dutch countryside, his colorful garden at the Wannsee, and his many portraits of Germany?s cultural, political, and military elites. Liebermann was the largest collector of French Impressionism in Germany - and his cosmopolitan outlook and his art created strong antipathies towards both by political and cultural conservatives throughout his life.

Max Liebermann (1847-1935), The leading artist in Germany from the early 1890s until the Nazi takeover in 1933, was known later in his career for his singular approach to Impressionism. Initially a realist painter, his work at times moved into the more abstract realm of "pure painting," which earned him the moniker, "Manet of the Germans." Liebermann, a self-assured cultural leader And The descendent of a successful German-Jewish family, was a celebrity in his own day. He was president of the Berlin Secession from 1898 until 1910 and, during the Weimar Republic served as president of the Prussian Academy of Art from 1920 until 1932. This first English-language publication on Liebermann looks beyond the factual details of his life and work to explore the virtuosity of his art And The personal attributes on which it oftentimes was based. Essays by German and American scholars provide creative new ways of understanding and interpreting Max Liebermann And The times in which he lived. Barbara C. Gilbert is senior curator of fine arts at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles. Other contributors include Marion Deshmukh, Francoise Forster-Hahn, Mason Klein, Chana Schultz, and Hermann Simon.