Walter Leistikow (1865 Bydgoszcz - 1908 Berlin) "Closing time, woodcutter". Original title Work from the artist's early oeuvre with a full-length depiction of a standing woodcutter in profile with a shouldered axe, smoking his after-work pipe. The painting combines stylistic elements of realism in the tradition of Courbet, Millet and the Barbizon school with an impressionistic view of the overall mood in its figurative motif, which is unusual for Leistikow. One of the few paintings by Leistikow with comparable motifs is a small portrait of an old woodcutter (or farmer with a saw) painted in 1888, which is now in the Muzeum Okregowe in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Around 1900, Leistikow was one of the most important protagonists of modernism in Berlin alongside Max Liebermann and Lesser Ury. He had already founded the famous artists' group "Die XI" with Liebermann in 1892 and the "Berliner Secession" in 1898, of which he was one of the leading figures. From around 1895, he became known for his Symbolist paintings and graphic works, which were close to Art Nouveau, and above all for his dreamy, melancholy atmospheric paintings of the forests and lakes in the Mark Brandenburg and Berlin. Oil on canvas; signed a. r. a. dat. 1889. 135.5 cm x 80 cm. Frame. Illustrated in: Margrit Bröhan: "Walter Leistikow", Berlin 1988, p. 144. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated 1889.