Max Clarenbach
Am Niederrhein / Niederrheinische Landschaft, Um 1923/24

Alfred Flechtheim and Max Clarenbach

Max Clarenbach studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf under Heinrich Lauenstein, Arthur Kampf and Eugène Gustav Dücker from 1893–1901. He achieved his artistic breakthrough with the painting ‘Der stille Tag’. It was shown at an exhibition in Vienna in 1903 where it was awarded the Große Goldene Staatsmedaille Österreichs. It then came into the possession of the Städtische Galerie Düsseldorf. Clarenbach spent 1907/08 in Paris and was full of enthusiasm for modern French art. In 1908 he was one of the founders of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künster and was co-organiser of the Sonderbund exhibitions in Düsseldorf and Cologne. In 1912 he also co-founded the Düsseldorf group ‘Die Friedfertigen’. He was honoured with a special exhibition of his work at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1914. In 1917 he was called to the Chair at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie. Clarenbach joined the Düsseldorf artists’ association Malkasten in 1919 and was represented at the exhibition for the re-opening of the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim. In 1927/28 his works were shown at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande and Westfalen, Düsseldorf and the Kölnische Kunstverein. Between 1937–44 Clarenbach regularly sent works to the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. In 1937 he received commissions from the Wehrmacht (unified armed forces) and the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Ministry of Aviation). He was also regional leader of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste in 1939/40. In 1945 he resigned his professorship at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf.