At the encouragement of Max Liebermann, Georg Tappert began his art studies in 1900, first in Karlsruhe and later in Weimar. The gallery owner Paul Cassirer devoted a solo exhibition to him as early as 1905, but Tappert nevertheless moved back to the artists’ commune in Worpswede. He first began his career as a painter and art teacher in Berlin in 1909. After 1937, the Nazis forced him into domestic emigration.
The dark-skinned artist Nyassa was one of his favourite models in the late 1920s.