Queer Places:

Charlotte Berend, portrait by Lovis Corinth: Portrait of Charlotte Berend in a White Dress, 1902, oil on canvas, Stadtmuseum, BerlinCharlotte Berend-Corinth (25 May 1880 – 10 January 1967) was a female German painter and artist in the Berliner Secession. She was married to German painter Lovis Corinth. Beginning in 1919, Charlotte drew character studies of various Berlin actors and actresses, including Valeska Gert (1892-1978); Anita Berber (1899-1928); and Fritzi Massary (1882-1969). An undated portfolio of nine characters played by Massary’s husband Max Pallenberg (1877-1934) was probably completed in the early 1920s.

The Dancer Anita BerberThe Dancer Anita Berber
The Dancer Anita BerberThe Dancer Anita Berber
The Dancer Anita BerberThe Dancer Anita Berber
The Dancer Anita BerberThe Dancer Anita Berber
Anita Berber by Charlotte Berend-Corinth


Valeska Gert by Charlotte Berend-Corinth

Charlotte Berend studied fine arts at the Royal School of Art in Berlin and the Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseum, taught by Eva Stort and Max Schäfer. In 1901, she was the first student at the private art school of Lovis Corinth, who fell in love with her. She became his model for a number of paintings, including Portrait of Charlotte Berend in a White Dress. On 26 March 1903, she married Corinth and changed her name to Berend-Corinth. On 13 October the same year their son Thomas Corinth was born, and their daughter Wilhelmine Corinth was born on 13 June 1909.

Berend-Corinth began exhibiting her paintings at the Berliner Secession in 1906. She joined the Secession in 1912 and did not leave it after the separation of the new Freie Secession led by Max Liebermann when Lovis Corinth became its new leader. She painted book illustrations for Max Pallenberg, Fritzi Massary, and Valeska Gert and painted portraits of Michael Bohnen, Werner Krauss, Paul Bildt and Paul Graetz. In the 1920s she supported young artists from the theatres in Berlin. In 1919 Lovis Corinth bought a house in Urfeld at Walchensee where he and his wife could retire from their life in Berlin. It was here, in her lakeside home at Urfeld, where she painted landscapes, portraits and still lifes and more and more retired from the active arts scene. Her husband died in 1925 from pneumonia during a journey to the Netherlands.

Berend-Corinth emigrated in 1933 to the United States of America, where her son Thomas was already living in New York City. In 1958 she published a book of the complete paintings of Lovis Corinth, which became a standard work and is in use today in a 1992 edition from Béatrice Hernad.

Berendt-Corinth died in 1967.


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