9 October 2026 — 25 January 2027

Lovis Corinth: Then Came Berlin!

It is hard to overstate Lovis Corinth’s contribution to modernism. In his own lifetime the virtuoso painter (1858–1925) was one of the most eminent and influential figures in the Berlin art world. Born and raised in Tapiau (now Gvardeysk) in East Prussia, he moved to the German capital from Munich in 1901, when Berlin was already markedly more progressive and vibrant than the Bavarian royal seat. “It didn’t take off until Berlin,” Corinth reputedly said of his successful career on the Spree. Lovis Corinth: Then Came Berlin! focuses on his stellar rise to fame and his huge impact on the city’s art scene, but also on the role played by his domestic entourage. How modern the artist was in his work, his lifestyle and his thinking becomes clear in some of the lesser-known aspects the exhibition spotlights: Corinth’s school of painting, where he taught primarily women, and the work he did for Berlin’s theatres. Corinth remains associated with his spontaneous, expressive use of brush and paint, which exerted a decisive influence on the future course of art – think of Berlin’s Junge Wilde, Georg Baselitz or the British painter Lucian Freud. The Berlinische Galerie holds a number of outstanding canvases by Corinth and has researched its own collection in the run-up to the show. The exhibition extends the museum’s successful series of monographic presentations devoted to modernism in Berlin, which have included Edvard Munch in 2023, Ferdinand Hodler in 2021, Lotte Laserstein in 2019, Jeanne Mammen in 2017 and Max Beckmann in 2015.

Berlinische Galerie