Badende Jungen, links Strandwächter

Max Liebermann

The loose translation of the title used in Schiefler is “Boys Bathing, Beach Guards on the Left,” and depicts a sunny day at an unidentified beach, likely on the North Sea, in which a group of boys plays in the surf. To the left, a fully-dressed lifeguard keeps watch.

Max Liebermann was a noted German Impressionist and pioneer of translating the modern style on the plate; while his paintings were richly hued and featured heavy, lush strokes, his drypoints were sparse, eloquent, and focused on the immediacy of the moment.

Despite his talent and popularity as an artist and a professor of art, as with many Jewish artists in Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s, his artwork was banned by the Nazis and his career ended not long before his death in 1935. To this day, many of Liebermann’s works are still missing after the looting of Jewish art in Berlin during World War II. However, the mark he made on the art world remains, and his influence can be found in the followers of German Impressionism and Expressionism to this day.