Biography

Lovis Corinth was a German painter best known for his adaptation of French Impressionist techniques into his idiosyncratic, psychologically expressive paintings. His work often featured interiors, landscapes, portraits, and biblical or mythological scenes. Inspired by the brushwork of Frans Hals the Elder and Rembrandt van Rijn, Corinth painted a series of slaughterhouses, using bright and thick pigment to give the carcasses a sensuality reminiscent of traditional nude painting. Born Franz Heinrich Louis on July 21, 1858 in Tapiau, Prussia (now Gvardeysk, Russia), Corinth went on to study at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich and later moved to Paris, where he studied under the popular painter William Adolphe Bourgereau. Corinth’s work can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, the Tate Gallery in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others. He died on July 17, 1925 in Zandvoort, the Netherlands.