Max Liebermann

Blumenstauden vor dem Gärtnerhäuschen nach Norden is a stunning example of Max Liebermann’s depiction of his garden at Wannsee in Berlin. Following the commission of his Wannsee villa in 1909, Liebermann rendered his garden from various angles, sometimes focusing on the enclosed, cultivated patches of flowers while at other times representing the open expanses (fig. 2). Liebermann’s paintings of his garden exude a reassuring sense of freedom, both in subject and technique, and convey the contentment Liebermann derived from spending time at his country villa.

The Wannsee villa became Liebermann’s beloved summer residence for the last decades of his life and the paintings from this period show his garden in all its glory. The villa was modelled on country houses he saw in Hamburg and when it was completed, Liebermann even spoke about it as his Klein-Versaille (little Versaille). The artist took great pride and paid special attention to the design and layout of his garden. In collaboration with his friend, Alfred Lichtwark (director of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg at the time), Liebermann designed his garden following the most avant-garde contemporary garden design concepts and created a haven of colours and floral splendour. The combination of flower beds and a rose garden with a vegetable garden was a most advanced concept and made Liebermann stand out, even in this regard, as a most forward-thinking person.

The artist’s practice of painting en plein air, and his method of exploring the same subject from a variety of viewpoints, reflect his status as the most important German post-Impressionist painter of his time (fig. 5). Liebermann was greatly inspired by the French Impressionists and was one of the pioneering collectors of Impressionist art in Germany. Circa 1904 he acquired the painting Manet peignant dans le jardin de Monet à Argenteuil (1874) by Claude Monet (fig. 4) which soon found its place in the Wannsee villa and reflected Liebermann’s affinity to Monet, who never tired of painting his flower garden at Giverny (fig. 3), Liebermann found a constant source of inspiration in his rich Wannsee garden.

In the present work, Liebermann captures the vividness of the beautiful range of colours in the flower bed in front of the gardener's house. The application of thick impasto brushwork and the use of strong reds, greens, yellows and whites are testimony to Liebermann’s admiration of painters such as Monet and Van Gogh and at the same time an example of the artist’s ability to capture the garden’s glory in such a magnificent way. 

FIG. 1: A view of Liebermann's garden, circa 1925
FIG. 2: Max Liebermann, Mein Haus in Wannsee, mit Garten, 1926, oil on canvas, sold: Sotheby’s, New York, 6^th May 2003
FIG. 3: Claude Monet, La Maison de l’artiste à Giverny, 1912, oil on canvas, Private Collection
FIG. 4: Claude Monet, Manet peignant dans le jardin de Monet à Argenteuil, 1874, oil on canvas, formerly collection Max Liebermann
FIG. 5: Max Liebermann painting in his garden, circa 1927