Lovis Corinth

Already known during his lifetime for his captivating work and character, Lovis Corinth is today considered one of the most important artists of Modernism. Committed to the artistic aspiration of Realism, his work, however, resists classification in the traditional art canon. With regard to a relatively long academic education, his late work bears witness to an increased virtuosity and autonomy in his use of colour and composition. In his œuvre, Corinth almost exemplifies the paradigm shift in 20th century art from representation to creation and continues to inspire generations of artists until today.

Born in 1858 in Tapiau (today Gvardejsk/Russia) in East Prussia, Lovis (Franz Heinrich Louis) Corinth receives the support of his father from an early age in his plans to become a painter. In 1867 he begins his studies at the art academy in Königsberg. Corinth joins the class of the genre painter Otto Günther, who introduces him to plein air painting and eventually recommends him to the Munich Art Academy, where Corinth continues his studies from 1880. In 1884 he first apprentices with Paul Eugène Gorge for a three-month study visit in Antwerp with and then enrols at the private Academie Julien in Paris.

After his father's death, Corinth moves back to Munich and begins to study the technique of etching. While the influence of his teachers is quite obvious in his early work, in Munich Corinth increasingly develops his own style. The wealth of subjects and their idiosyncratic realisation is striking: portraits and nudes alternate with almost burlesque scenes from mythology, which contrast with the exaggeratedly realistic execution of religious themes.
When contact with the Berlin Secession intensifies, Corinth decides to move to the capital in 1901, where he successfully acquires socially important clients of political and cultural importance. Initially weakened by a severe stroke in the winter of 1911, an intensive phase of work follows in which he repeatedly composes specific subjects such as self-portraits, nudes, flower still lifes and, above all, the landscape around the Walchensee. All motifs are executed in painting and drawing well as in prints. In the tradition of alla prima painting, he uses a dynamic ductus to combine pure colour wet next to wet into a compositional unity.
In 1925 Corinth was awarded the honorary membership of the Bavarian Academy. In the same year, the artist died during a trip to Zandvoort in the Netherlands.