Art History News: In Sight! Lovis Corinth, the Nationalgalerie and the “Degenerate Art

Museumsinsel Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie

Through January 2026

To mark the 100th anniversary of Lovis Corinth’s death, the Alte Nationalgalerie is staging a comprehensive exhibition that addresses the fate of both Corinth’s artworks and those of his wife, the painter Charlotte Berend-Corinth, in the collection of the Nationalgalerie. The exhibition focusses on the various provenances of the artworks on display: the holdings of the Nationalgalerie are supplemented by artworks that were transferred to other museums as part of the Nazis’ “degenerate art” campaign and have now been returned on a temporary basis specifically for this exhibition.

Alongside Max Liebermann and Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) is considered one of the most prominent representatives of the German Impressionist movement. Home to more than 20 of the artist’s oil paintings, some of them large-format, the Nationalgalerie boasts an extensive and significant collection of Corinth’s works.

However, the routes by which these objects found their way into the Nationalgalerie’s collection are frequently characterised by their loss and in some cases their return: a selection of the paintings in question were seized in 1937 as “degenerate” artworks, before being unexpectedly returned in 1939, while others were only able to be reacquired much later; some were not seized, whereas others were sold during that era and are now held in various locations in Germany and abroad.

In an effort to compensate for these losses, additional paintings by Corinth and his wife Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880–1967) were acquired by both the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR after 1945. Born in East Prussia, Corinth relocated from Munich to Berlin in 1901. Following a stroke in 1911, his brushwork became considerably more expressive. When he died of pneumonia on 17 July 1925, he was on his way to Am

Lovis Corinth

Frau mit Rosenhut, 1912

Öl auf Leinwand, 60 x 50 cm

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie /

Fotograf: Reinhard Saczewski