LE CLAIRE KUNST SEIT 1982 MAX LIEBERMANN 1847 - Berlin - 1935 Polo Players Pen and black ink on laid paper with watermark: P M B; circa 1912. Signed lower right: Mliebermann. 120 x 180 mm PROVENANCE: Dr. Carl Jordan, Zurich – Private collection, Switzerland Alfred Lichtwark (1852-1914) was appointed director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1886. He was the Kunsthalle’s first director. Soon after his appointment he launched an innovative project titled ‘Sammlung von Bildern aus Hamburg’ which involved inviting leading modernists to the city and commissioning them to produce works relating to Hamburg for the Kunsthalle’s collection. Lichtwark had identified Liebermann as one of German’s leading modernists and invited him to Hamburg in 1890. A lifelong friendship was to result from this first visit. Liebermann regularly visited Hamburg, where he painted a number of his most important works. Lichtwark was a fan of fashionable sporting activities of the era – tennis, sailing, horse racing and polo. Polo had only recently been introduced in Germany and the country’s first polo club was founded in Hamburg in 1898. In 1901 the club moved to a new ground in Klein Flottbek, only a short distance from the Hotel Jacob where Liebermann stayed on his visit to the city in 1902.1 Polo seems to have held a special fascination for Max Liebermann. He executed an important group of paintings, pastels, etchings and drawings involving polo motifs over a ten year period beginning in 1902 [fig.1].2 Some of the drawings and pastels were probably made on the spot and served as studies for paintings he later worked up in his Berlin studio. He took up the motif again in 1907, making three oil sketches3 and one etching.4 He returned to it yet again in 1912 to produce a major painting.5 At the centre of the present drawing is a player depicted in full gallop. His mallet lowered, he is on the point of striking the ball. All the players are involved in vigorous action. Vivid pen strokes convey the speed of the ponies. The trees and bushes forming the natural perimeter of the field appear in a blur, as the players would perceive them during the match. Liebermann was himself an enthusiastic rider. He had trained under Carl Steffeck – otherwise known as the Pferdemaler – so he was well schooled in handling the horse as a subject. When he took up bourgeois leisure motifs around the turn of the century, his focus turned to the world of fashion and 1 Max Liebermann in Hamburg. Landschaften zwischen Alster und Elbe 1890-1910, exhib. cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1994, p. 6. 2 Jenisch Park, Hamburg; Polo Players, 1903, oil on canvas, 71 : 102 cm. Eberle 1903/1. Private collection, Hamburg. Several studies of polo players are held in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 1606 and 39964-67. 3 Eberle 1907/22-24. 4 Schiefler 68. 5 Eberle 1912/2. ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12 [email protected] ∙ WWW.LECLAIRE-KUNST.DE HYPOVEREINSBANK HAMBURG ∙ BLZ: 200 300 00 ∙ KTO: 222 5464 SWIFT (BIC): HYVEDEMM300 ∙ IBAN: DE88 2003 0000 0002 2254 64 STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308 LE CLAIRE KUNST SEIT 1982 its engagement in sporting activities, particularly tennis and riding.6 He had studied the paintings of Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet in the 1890s and in his handling of movement and predilection for dynamic viewpoints his work owes much to their influence.7 Fig. 1: Jenisch Park, Hamburg; Polo Players, 1903, oil on canvas, 71 : 102 cm. Eberle 1903/1. Private collection, Hamburg 6 Annabelle Görgen and Sebastian Giesen, Ein Impressionismus für Hamburgs Bürgertum. Max Liebermann und Alfred Lichtwark, exhib. cat., Hamburg, Ernst-Barlach Haus – Stiftung Hermann F. Reemtsma, 2002. p. 58. 7 Liebermann published essays on Degas (PAN, IV, 1898, no. 3, pp.193-6) and on Manet (Kunst und Künstler, 1905 and 1910). See Max Liebermann in Hamburg. Landschaften zwischen Alster und Elbe 1890-1910, Jenns E. Howoldt and Andreas Baur (eds.), Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1994, p. 34. ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12 [email protected] ∙ WWW.LECLAIRE-KUNST.DE HYPOVEREINSBANK HAMBURG ∙ BLZ: 200 300 00 ∙ KTO: 222 5464 SWIFT (BIC): HYVEDEMM300 ∙ IBAN: DE88 2003 0000 0002 2254 64 STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308 .