1881
Hermann Max Pechstein is born in Zwickau on 31 December, the son of a master textile finisher. The family of eight lives on the wages of the father, who works in a textile factory.

1888 – 1896
Attends the Bürgerschule (municipal school) in Zwickau.

1896 – 1900
Max Pechstein learns the craft of decorative painting.

1900 -1903
After passing his journeyman’s examination, he begins studies at the Dresden School of Applied Arts under Wilhelm Kreis (professor of interior art)

1903 – 1906
He takes up studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where he becomes a master student of Otto Gußmann. Gußmann is professor of decorative and monumental painting there and is also of great importance for the rise of the applied arts in Dresden. Pechstein receives his own studio, where he designs stained-glass windows, mosaics and murals. In 1905 he visits an exhibition of works by van Gogh in Dresden. In the ethnological museum he sees carvings from the South Seas. His first woodcut is created

1906
Pechstein leaves the Academy with its highest distinction, the Saxon State Prize, also known as the Rome Prize. After meeting Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, he joins the artists’ group Brücke, founded a year earlier, whose members hold numerous joint exhibitions until 1910. His first lithographs and etchings are created.

1907
Commission for stained-glass windows for the town hall of Eibenstock in the Erzgebirge. In the summer he paints with Kirchner in Goppeln near Dresden. In the autumn he spends three months in Italy as a state prize laureate, visiting Florence, Ravenna and Rome, among other places. He takes part in the first print exhibition of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. From December he spends nine months in Paris. There he sees the works of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse, which become important for his further development, and also makes contact with the Fauvists (winning Kees van Dongen as a Brücke member, for example).

1908
Participation in the exhibition of the Indépendants. In the autumn he moves to Berlin, where he is represented at the Berlin Secession exhibition with four lithographs and one gouache.

1909
Again exhibits at the Berlin Secession, where Max Pechstein shows the paintings “Grünes Tuch”, “Weiber mit gelbem Tuch” and “Märzenschnee”. His first stay in the fishing village of Nidden in what was then East Prussia lasts from June to September.

1910
Pechstein’s works submitted to the Berlin Secession are rejected under pressure from Max Liebermann, whereupon he founds the New Secession together with other artists rejected by the Berlin Secession. In June he stays with Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in Dangast on the Jade Bight. He spends the summer at the Moritzburg ponds together with Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The paintings “Im Wasser” and “Am Seeufer” are created, as are the lithographic series “Tanz” and “Karneval”.

1911
Marries Charlotte Kaprolat. From March to April he undertakes a second journey to Italy. From June to September, his second stay in Nidden. Creation of the woodcut series “Badende”. The founding of an institute for modern instruction in painting (MUIM) together with Kirchner remains without commercial success.

1912
Murals in the Villa Perls, built by Mies van der Rohe. He takes part in the print exhibition of the Blaue Reiter in Munich and in Herwarth Walden’s Sturm exhibition in Berlin. In the same year he leaves the Brücke, feeling that the decision to exhibit only jointly is too great a restriction. In the summer he stays in Nidden for the third time. He takes part in the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne.

1913
Third journey to Italy, to the fishing village of Monterosso al Mare near La Spezia. He travels to Ghent (commissioned by Walter Gropius) and to Paris. Birth of his first son Frank.

1914
Pechstein travels with his wife to the South Seas, to the Palau Islands (a former German colony east of the Philippines). He records island life in writing and in numerous drawings, watercolours and carvings. (Most of these works are lost today.) Pechstein and his wife are caught by the outbreak of war and taken into Japanese captivity in Nagasaki.

1915
Pechstein is released after swearing an oath of neutrality and returns to Germany by a circuitous route, including via New York; he last works as a coal trimmer on a steamer. In Berlin he finds his flat occupied and his studio cleared.

1915/1916
Military service on the Western Front (Somme/Flanders).

1917
The Palau paintings (Palau landscapes, “Der Götze”, “Der ausziehende Vogelfänger”) and graphic cycles (“Exotische Köpfe”, “Köpfe”, “Samländische Ode” and “Italienische Fischer”) are created. He designs stained-glass windows and mosaics for the showrooms of the Fritz Gurlitt art dealership.

1918
Pechstein is a co-founder of the Novembergruppe and the socialist association Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Workers’ Council for Art) in Berlin. The appeal “An alle Künstler” (To All Artists) is published with his involvement.

1919
Fourth stay in Nidden. Several pictures of the fishermen’s houses there are created, as well as “Unterhaltung” and “Hängematte I”. He lithographs the 50 travel pictures “Italien–Südsee” and carves wooden figures influenced by primitive sculpture.

1920
Fifth stay in Nidden. The series of paintings “Fischerleben” is created.

1921
He creates the woodcut series “Fischerköpfe” and “Vater Unser”.

1921 1945
Summer stays in Leba (1927–1932 in Rowe).

1922
Journey to Montreux to visit his patron Dr Minnich. He becomes a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and receives a nominal professorship.

1923
Separation from his first wife and marriage to Marta Möller. Etchings for Willy Seidel’s “Yali und sein weißes Weib”. Break with Wolfgang Gurlitt, ending an essential source of financial security.

1924 1925
Stays in Monterosso al Mare, on Bornholm and in Switzerland.

1926
Birth of his second son Max. He takes up the theme of mother and child again. Commissioned by the German government, he creates stained-glass windows for the International Labour Office in Geneva.

1927
Garden Club Prize from the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh/USA for the painting “Calla”.

1928
He is awarded the Prussian State Prize for the painting “Nordweststurm”, exhibited at the Berlin Secession, and elected to the exhibition commission of the Academy of Arts.

1930
Honorary diplomas from Milan and Bordeaux, medal of honour from Vienna.

1931
Journey to the south of France. State prize of the German government.

1933
The National Socialist regime attempts to remove Pechstein from the exhibition commission of the Academy of Arts as a ‘degenerate’ artist.

1934
Investigations into his involvement in the Novembergruppe. No more sales success in Germany.

1937
Expulsion from the Academy of Arts, and confiscation of 326 works from German museums. The exhibition “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) shows 6 paintings, 4 watercolours and 6 prints by him.

1939
Sixth and last summer stay in Nidden.

1943
Service in the Volkssturm until his release.

1944
After a bombing raid, the print collection of Wolfgang Gurlitt, containing numerous works by Pechstein, is destroyed by fire.

1945
Labour service in Pomerania together with his wife. He experiences the end of the war in Leba. For a short time he is taken into Russian captivity. His Berlin flat and studio, along with most of his works, are destroyed by fire. He returns to Berlin, where he is appointed to a teaching post at the Berlin University of Fine Arts.

1946/1947
He writes his memoirs, which are not published until 1960. Honorary citizenship of his native city of Zwickau, which also endows a Max Pechstein Prize for painting.

1949
Summer stay in Ückeritz on Usedom. Renewed contact with Schmidt-Rottluff.

1951
On the occasion of his 70th birthday, Pechstein is appointed honorary senator of the Berlin University of Fine Arts.

1952
Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Summer stay in Strande on the Bay of Kiel.

1953
Summer stay on Amrum.

1954
Art prize of the Senate of the City of Berlin.

1955
Max Pechstein dies in Berlin on 29 June.