"Gebt mir eine Wand"

With the mural paintings in the auditorium of the University of Leipzig, in the city councillors’ assembly hall of the New Town Hall in Chemnitz as well as the unrealised painting of the staircase in the Museum of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Conny Dietrich for the first time addresses the so far neglected group of works of German artist Max Klinger (1857–1920). In her comprehensive study the renowned Klinger expert describes his path to mural painting, portrays the making of the three projects, analyses them in depth and puts them in the context of monumental painting in the German Empire. The study is based upon extensive source materials and is a major contribution to the history of mural painting in the years of the emergence of modernity.