Georg Tappert

Georg Tappert was born in Berlin in 1880, the same year as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) and Franz Marc (1880-1916), the two leading figures in the German Expressionist groups, Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. Tappert did not join either of these movements, but he became friends with most of the artists involved. He pursued artistic ends closely aligned to theirs, took part in many of their exhibitions, and shared their fate in seeing his work banned by the Nazi regime.

In 1910, Tappert co-founded the School for Visual and Applied Arts in Berlin and the Neue Sezession (with Pechstein and others). He was appointed “first executive officer” of the Neue Sezession and exhibited with them until 1914. In 1911, Tappert helped found the Jury Free Art Show, and in 1912 he began teaching in Berlin. During the First World War, Tappert was drafted into the infantry, where he served until 1918.

In 1919, he resumed teaching at the Riemann School and the United State Schools for Fine and Applied Arts. That same year, Georg started exhibiting the Novembergruppe. Tappert stopped painting after his Berlin studio blew up in 1944. He died in Berlin on 16 November 1957. Georg Tappert was influenced by Max Liebermann and Ludwig Schmid-Reutte. Schmid-Reutte was a naturalist painter to whom Georg was introduced. Ludwig’s paintings focused on the human body, and his influence is evident in Georg’s nude portraits.