Organ Grinder in Zandvoort

Uhde, who worked in Munich painting fashionable Dutch costume dramas, was inspired by Max Liebermann to go to Holland to study the people and the landscape on the spot. In the summer of 1882, he travelled to Zandvoort where he made studies for both versions of his composition of an organ grind er with children gathered around him. In Holland Uhde, like Liebermann before him, now left his dark studio, shaking off Munkácsy’s influence and turned to modern plein-air painting. As he worked from nature his colors became brighter and purer. Uhde also followed Liebermann’s lead in terms of subject matter, although his works are more anecdotal, and at first they were also more successful.