Hermann Lismann
German, 1878–1943
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Born in Munich, he studied in his native town and in Lausanne, and later went to Rome and to Paris (1904). Here he belonged to the group of artists that met regularly at the Café du Dôme. After serving in the German army in World War I he settled in Frankfurt, where many of his works were acquired by the local museum, and where for several years he taught aesthetics at the university. After the rise of Hitler he immigrated to France, residing in Tours. He was interned by the French at the outbreak of World War II as an enemy alien, but managed to escape to Montauban near Toulouse, in the unoccupied zone. However, in 1943 he was deported to his death in the extermination camp of Majdanek. His postimpressionist works, in the Staedelsches Museum at Frankfurt and in the museum of Wuppertal, were confiscated by the Nazis and disappeared. Nevertheless, a memorial exhibition held by the Frankfurt Kunstverein in 1959 was able to assemble 132 of his works.