Damenporträt (Portrait of the artist's mother-in-law)

Painter Lovis Corinth trained at the Münchener Kunstakademie, where he developed his signature realist style before relocating to Berlin in 1902. There he achieved moderate success through the sale of his work, and established a very profitable art school for women—eventually marrying one of his students, Charlotte Berend. In Damenporträt, Corinth depicts Berend’s mother. Unlike more traditional painters, Corinth sought to render factual, unidealized depictions of his sitters. His keen attention to the nuances of light, shade, and tonal variations in her complexion are characteristic of his work. Corinth painted this portrait the same year that he suffered a stroke, which caused partial paralysis of the left side of his body. His thick application of paint, and the intensity of his brushstrokes, are the result of the artist’s physical struggle to control the brush.