(Waldheim/Saxony 1877–1947 Berlin)
Max Liebermann, artist’s monogram GK (on top of the base) and stamped with the foundry mark H. NOACK, BERLIN FRIEDENAU, bronze with dark brown patina, 30 x 18 x 19 cm (bronze cast) on stone base 12.5 x 15.5 x 16 cm

There are six or seven casts conceived in 1929, three posthumous. All of them are executed at Noack.

Provenance:
Private Collection, Rhineland

Certificate of authenticity:
Dr. Julia Wallner, Georg-Kolbe Museum, Berlin

Literature:
H. Ostwald, Das Liebermann-Buch, Berlin, 1930, no. 142 (another cast illustrated p. 287)
A. Hentzen, “Georg Kolbe – Berlin”, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, September 1930, pp. 362–372
U. Berger, Georg Kolbe – Leben und Werk, mit dem Katalog der Kolbe-Plastiken im Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin, 1990, no. 123, p. 318 (another cast illustrated p. 319)

Max Liebermann produced numerous self-portraits, but he commissioned the sculptor Georg Kolbe to make his portrait bust. In exchange for the bronze cast, the Berlin-based painter allowed Georg Kolbe to choose a work of his – and he picked a pastel depicting an avenue, painted in the mid-1920s.
When the sculpture was made, Max Liebermann was over 80 years old. Georg Kolbe depicts the painter with his head slightly bent forward, his keen sense of observation evident in the raised eyebrows on his wrinkled face.
The Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin first displayed the portrait of its then-President Max Liebermann in spring 1929. As the Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 13 February 1935, Georg Kolbe was among the small number of friends that attended Liebermann’s funeral on 11 February 1935.