Max Klinger was a German artist known for his Symbolist paintings, prints, and sculptures. Influenced by the work of Francisco Goya, Arnold Böcklin, and the Italian Renaissance, Klinger’s art often focused on romantic yearning, eerie figures, and a sense of mystery, while his earliest work leaned towards the socio-critical. His series titled Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove (1881) earned him recognition for his skill in illustrating elaborate narratives of modern life. It was after the publication of the more dark, mystic work A Life (1884)—depicting a young woman abandoned, forced into prostitution, and rejected by bourgeois society—that he dedicated himself to more experimental, imaginative subjects, exploring dreamlike space. Born on February 18, 1857 in Leipzig, Germany, Klinger began his training at the Karlsuhe Art School under social Realist painter Karl Gussow, whom he followed to Berlin. In Berlin, Klinger studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and became acquainted with Japanese woodblock prints at the Kupferstichkabinett. The artist later moved to Paris, where in 1891 he self-published Painting and Drawing, marking the merit of the graphic arts as a medium suited to original expression and experimentation. Klinger’s work had a profound influence on the Metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico, the Surrealists, and a generation of German graphic artists. Seven years after his death on July 5, 1920 in Naumburg, Germany, a high school in his hometown of Leipzig was named the Max Klinger Schule. The artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among many others.