Self-Portrait

Along with Max Liebermann and Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinith is frequently considered a transitional figure in German art. After suffering a stroke in 1911, his impressionist manner gave way to looser brushwork, giving his work an affinity with the emerging Expressionists. This watercolor, still in its original frame, originally belonged to one of Corinth's students.

2000, Bequest to the Indiana University Art Museum from Bernhard Heiden, Bloomington, IN

1963–2000, Collection of Bernhard Heiden (1910–2000) and Cola Heiden (1910–1999), Bloomington, IN (by descent from Martha Heiden) [1]

1939–1963, Collection of Ernst Levi (1865–1941) and Martha Heiden (1878–1963), New Rochelle, NY; formerly of Frankfurt, Germany (gift of Frieda Blanka von Joeden) [2]

by 1925–ca. 1939, Collection of Frieda Blanka von Joeden (1878–1955), Frankfurt, Germany (gift of the artist) [3]

Notes:

[1] Bernhard Heiden (né Levi) and his wife Cola (née de Joncheere) Heiden emigrated to the United States in 1935 to escape persecution as Jews under the Third Reich. They settled in Bloomington in 1946, where Bernhard was a member of the music school faculty until his retirement. The Heidens inherited much of their art collection, including the Corinth watercolor, from Bernhard’s parents, who followed them to the United States four years later (museum donor file on the Heidens).

[2] Ernst Levi was a magistrate for the city of Frankfurt am Main, where he lived with wife Martha (née Heidenheimer), a violinist, until their emigration to the United States. Among Levi’s councilman duties was the supervision of social welfare programs for Frankfurt artists. Levi came to be on friendly terms with many of them, including Joeden, for whom he served as executor to her will. Through these various contacts, Levi was able to assemble a collection of contemporary German art. Ernst and Martha fled Germany in 1939, sailing from the port of Bremen after a brief detainment by Nazi officials. Whether they had works from their collection in their possession when they left, or sent for them later, is unresolved. The entire collection appears to have reached the United States intact (Bernhard Heiden in conversation with Kathleen Foster, former Indiana University Art Museum curator of Western art after 1800, on November 15, 1999; transcript in curatorial files).

[3] According to Bernhard Heiden, Corinth gave his self-portrait to Joeden, a commercial painter and formerly his student, at an unspecified date (Foster interview; Benezit Dictionary of Artists).

Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

October 6–December 23, 2012, "Pioneers and Exiles: German Expressionism at the Indiana University Art Museum," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN (cat. no. 2)

March 29–May 14, 2000, "About Face: Two Thousand Years of Portraiture at Indiana University," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

September 17–December 10, 2000, "A Legacy of German Expressionism: Gifts from Bernhard and Cola Heiden," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN

1977, "German and Austrian Expressionism 1900–1920," Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN (no. 12)

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"Self-Portrait | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2026. https://collections.artmuseum.indiana.edu/browse/object.php?number=2000.138