Max Slevogt
Neukastel - Blick auf die Madenburg, 1924

Alfred Flechtheim and Max Slevogt

The painter and graphic artist Max Slevogt is one of the main representatives of German Impressionism. Having trained at the Academy in Munich his work was initially close to the German Realists Wilhelm Leibl and Wilhelm Trübner. Slevogt was a member of the Munich Secession and the Freie Vereinigung. His painting became more radiant and his brushwork more fleeting and pastose through his leaning toward French Impressionism. The more open reception of his works in the capital led to his moving to Berlin in autumn 1901. In 1902 he became a member of the Berlin Secession and was elected to its board. He left the Secession in 1913 together with other members and founded the Freie Sezession. In 1917 he took on the management of the master studio at the Preußische Akademie der Bildenden Künste. Slevogt primarily made a name for himself at a portraitist and landscape painter, as well as an illustrator. In addition, he painted wall frescos and designed stage sets. He regularly spent the summer months on his country estate, Neukastel, in the Palatinate. Retrospective exhibitions were held in 1918 at the Freie Sezession and in 1928 at the Preußische Akademie der Künste.

Max Slevogt was in close contact with Paul and Bruno Cassirer. In 1899 they exhibited 34 of his paintings together with works by Manet, Degas and Puvis de Chavannes in their art salon. From 1903, Slevogt’s book illustrations were published by Bruno Cassirer and in 1904, Paul Cassirer signed an exclusivity agreement with the artist. Slevogt and Flechtheim probably met through Paul Cassirer who was a silent partner in Flechtheim’s gallery. All three regularly frequented the Romanische Café in Berlin. Flechtheim and Slevogt however had virtually no business ties. During the artist’s lifetime only a few individual works were shown at three different group exhibitions in Flechtheim’s gallery in Düsseldorf in 1913, 1925 and 1930. The Städtische Kunstsammlungen Düsseldorf acquired one painting at the exhibition in 1925. A few of Slevogt’s paintings and works on paper were illustrated in Flechtheim’s magazine ‘Der Querschnitt’.