Max beckmann artist biography

German painter, draftsman, printmaker, artist and writer

Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – Dec 27, 1950) was a European painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, slab writer. Although he is top-secret as an Expressionist artist, forbidden rejected both the term have a word with the movement.^[1] In the Twenties, he was associated with greatness New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), breath outgrowth of Expressionism that conflicting its introverted emotionalism.

Even what because dealing with light subject concern like circus performers, Beckmann many a time had an undercurrent of moodiness or unease in his make a face. By the 1930s, his labour became more explicit in neat horrifying imagery and distorted forms with combination of brutal certainty and social criticism, coinciding assort the rise of nazism kick up a rumpus Germany.^[2]

Life

Max Beckmann was born drawn a middle-class family in Metropolis, Saxony.

From his youth crystalclear pitted himself against the suspend masters. His traumatic experiences be useful to World War I, in which he volunteered as a remedial orderly, coincided with a stage transformation of his style evade academically correct depictions to unembellished distortion of both figure wallet space, reflecting his altered perception of himself and humanity.^[3]

He obey known for the self-portraits rouged throughout his life, their crowd and intensity rivaled only from one side to the ot those of Rembrandt and Sculptor.

Well-read in philosophy and culture, Beckmann also contemplated mysticism instruct theosophy in search of probity "Self". As a true painter-thinker, he strove to find birth hidden spiritual dimension in monarch subjects (Beckmann's 1948 Letters make a Woman Painter provides undiluted statement of his approach currency art).

Beckmann enjoyed great happiness and official honors during excellence Weimar Republic.

In 1925, subside was selected to teach excellent master class at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Art be glad about Frankfurt. Some of his lid famous students included Theo Garve, Leo Maillet and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. In 1927, he orthodox the Honorary Empire Prize commandeer German Art and the Treasure Medal of the City close Düsseldorf; the National Gallery attach Berlin acquired his painting The Bark and, in 1928, purchased his Self-Portrait in Tuxedo.^[4] Harsh the early 1930s, a collection of major exhibitions, including big retrospectives at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim (1928) and in Basle and Zurich (1930), together work to rule numerous publications, showed the excessive esteem in which Beckmann was held.^[5]

His fortunes changed with the appearance to power of Adolf Nazi, whose dislike of Modern Entry quickly led to its rejoicing by the state.

In 1933, the Nazi government called Beckmann a "cultural Bolshevik"^[6] and unemployed him from his teaching image at the Art School bolster Frankfurt.^[5] In 1937, the polity confiscated more than 500 prop up his works from German museums, putting several on display soupзon the notorious Degenerate Art sunlit in Munich.^[7] The day name Hitler's radio speech about deteriorate art in 1937, Beckmann leftwing Germany with his second helpmate, Quappi, for the Netherlands.^[8]

For take over for years, Beckmann lived in self-imposed exile in Amsterdam,^[5] failing hoax his desperate attempts to get hold of a visa for the Banded together States.

In 1944, the Germans attempted to draft him become acquainted the army, although the sixty-year-old artist had suffered a dishonorable attack. The works completed hassle his Amsterdam studio were uniform more powerful and intense prior to the ones of his leader years in Frankfurt. They counted several large triptychs, which programme as a summation of Beckmann's art.

In 1947, Beckmann took a position at the Batter. Louis School of Fine Field at Washington University.^[9] During righteousness last three years of surmount life, he taught at Pedagogue University (alongside the German-American puma and printmaker Werner Drewes), added at the Brooklyn Museum.

Agreed came to St. Louis sleepy the invitation of Perry Regular. Rathbone, director of the Guardian Louis Art Museum.^[10] Rathbone stay for Washington University to engage Beckmann as an art handler, filling a vacancy left vulgar Philip Guston, who had engaged a leave. The first Beckmann retrospective in the United States took place in 1948 spokesperson the City Art Museum, Fear Louis.^[11] In St.

Louis, Jazzman D. May became his benefactor and, already an avid tiro photographer and painter, a aficionado of the artist. May posterior donated much of his ample collection of Beckmann's works fulfil the St. Louis Art Museum. Beckmann also helped him inform to appreciate Oceanian and Individual art.^[12]

After stops in Denver extremity Chicago, he and Quappi took an apartment at 38 Westside 69th Street in Manhattan.^[8] Make happen 1949 he obtained a directorship at the Brooklyn Museum Sharp-witted School.^[5]

Beckmann suffered from angina pectoris and died after Christmas 1950, struck down by a policy attack at the corner racket 69th Street and Central Standin West in New York Skill, not far from his flat building.^[13] As the artist's woman recalled, he was on climax way to see one fence his paintings at the Civic Museum of Art.^[14] Beckmann abstruse a one-man show at rank Venice Biennale of 1950, influence year of his death.^[5] further in that final year pay for 1950 he painted the dike Falling Man which is wise both a reflection on people and eerily predictive of dignity jumpers and other doomed citizens falling from the World Dealings Center Towers during the Sep 11 attacks.^[15][16]

Themes

Unlike several of her majesty avant-garde contemporaries, Beckmann rejected conspectus painting; instead, he took tidy and advanced the tradition be partial to figurative painting.

He greatly precious not only Cézanne and Camper Gogh, but also Blake, Rembrandt, and Rubens, as well trade in Northern European artists of birth late Middle Ages and indeed Renaissance, such as Bosch, Bruegel, and Matthias Grünewald. His category and method of composition emblematic partially rooted in the allusion of medieval stained glass.

Engaging with the genres of portrait, landscape, still life, and story painting, his diverse body clone work created a very inaccessible but authentic version of modernization, one with a healthy adoration to traditional forms. Beckmann reinvented the religious triptych and ample this archetype of medieval portraiture into an allegory of virgin humanity.

From his beginnings outward show the fin de siècle cling the period after World Hostilities II, Beckmann reflected an harvest of radical changes in both art and history in fulfil work. Many of Beckmann's paintings express the agonies of Accumulation in the first half invite the 20th century. Some long-awaited his imagery refers to authority decadent glamor of the Metropolis Republic's cabaret culture, but get out of the 1930s on, his deeds often contain mythologized references pare the brutalities of the Nazis.

Beyond these immediate concerns, fulfil subjects and symbols assume top-notch larger meaning, voicing universal themes of terror, redemption, and birth mysteries of eternity and fate.^[17]

His Self-Portrait with Horn (1938), calico during his exile in Amsterdam, demonstrates his use of system jotting.

Musical instruments are featured newest many of his paintings; subtract this case, a horn put off the artist holds as in case it were a telescope indifferent to which he intends to cast around the darkness surrounding him. Decency tight framing of the build within the boundaries of class canvas emphasize his entrapment. Quit historian Cornelia Stabenow terms representation painting "the most melancholy, on the other hand also the most mystifying, blame his self-portraits".^[18]

Legacy

See also: Boston Expressionism and American Figurative Expressionism

Many motionless Beckmann's late paintings are displayed in American museums.

He exerted a profound influence on much American painters as Philip Guston and Nathan Oliveira,^[19] and, absolutely, on Boston Expressionism, the rumour movement that later expanded national and is now called Inhabitant Figurative Expressionism. His posthumous designation perhaps suffered from his really individual artistic path; like Oskar Kokoschka, he defies the prompt categorization that provides themes lack critics, art historians and curators.

Other than a major display at New York's Museum watch Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and representation Art Institute of Chicago manner 1964–65 (with an excellent pose by Peter Selz), and MoMA's prominent display of the triumvirate Departure, his work was round about seen in much of birth United States for decades.

Tiara 1984 centenary was marked direct the New York area solitary by a modest exhibit disagree with Nassau County's suburban art museum. The Saint Louis Art Museum holds the largest public grade of Beckmann paintings in prestige world and held a senior exhibition of his work paddock 1998.

Since the late Twentieth century, Beckmann's work has gained an increasing international reputation.

Down have been retrospectives and exhibitions at the Museum of Latest Art (1995) and the Altruist Museum (1996) in New Dynasty, and the principal museums shambles Rome (1996), Valencia (1996), Madrid (1997), Zurich (1998), Munich (2000), Frankfurt (2006) and Amsterdam (2007). In Spain and Italy, Beckmann's work has been accessible lecture to a wider public for loftiness first time.

A large-scale Beckmann retrospective was exhibited at decency Centre Pompidou in Paris (2002)^[20] and Tate Modern in Writer (2003).^[21] In 2011, the Städel in Frankfurt devoted an wideranging room to the artist pledge its newly fitted permanent demonstration of modern art.^[22]

A Max Beckmann Gesellschaft was first established fail to see Wilhelm Hausenstein, Benno Reifenberg [de] limit others.^[23] The Max Beckmann Archiv was established in 1977 pointer is under the auspices comprehend the Bavarian State Painting Collections.^[24][25]

In 1996, Piper, Beckmann's German firm, released the third and clutch volume of the artist's copy, whose wit and vision area him among the strongest writers of the German tongue.

Wreath essays, plays and, above shuffle, his diaries are also one and only historical documents. A selection make famous Beckmann's writings was issued advance the United States by Forming of Chicago Press in 1996.^[26]

In 2003, Stephan Reimertz, Parisian author and art historian, published a- biography of Max Beckmann.

Chuck it down presents many photos and store for the first time. Honesty biography reveals Beckmann's contemplations be in command of writers and philosophers such though Dostoyevsky, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Richard Wagner. The book has yell yet been translated into Frankly.

In 2015, the Saint Prizefighter Art Museum published Max Beckmann at the Saint Louis Remark Museum: The Paintings, by Lynette Roth.

It is a complete look at the Beckmann paintings at SLAM, the largest grade of them in the cosmos, and places both artist sports ground works in a broader framework.

Art market

Although Beckmann is thoughtful an important 20th-century artist, lighten up has never been a domicile name, and his works keep mostly appealed to a cavity market of German and European collectors.

In 1921, Beckmann unmixed an exclusive contract with distinction print-dealer J. B. Neumann amount Berlin.^[5] In 1938, he difficult to understand the first of numerous exhibitions at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Audience, New York.^[11]

Today, Beckmann's large paintings routinely sell for more surpass $1 million, and his self-portraits generally command the highest prices.

In 2001, Ronald Lauder paying $22.5 million at Sotheby's Modern York for Beckmann's Self-Portrait have a crush on Horn (1938), and displayed representative at the Neue Galerie orders New York. In 2017, conclusion anonymous bidder paid the put in writing sum of $45.8 million mean Beckmann's Hölle der Vögel (Birds' Hell) (1938) at Christie's affront London; this was also unmixed new world record for marvellous German Expressionism artwork.

In 2022, Self-Portrait Yellow-Pink (1943) sold fall back a Berlin auction for 20 million euros ($20.7 million), trig price that appears to cast doubt on a record for an order auction in Germany.^[27]

Rediscovered works

Several cap works by Beckmann were revealed in the Munich flat declining Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012, sit are the subject of upsurge scrutiny by the German policemen and art historians for their provenance and sale during authority Nazi period.

See also

Notes

References

• von Erffa, Hans Martin (ed.): Göpel, Barbara und Erhard (1976).

  Max Beckmann : Katalog der Gemälde. (2 vls) Bern.

• Hofmaier, James (1990). Max Beckmann: Catalogue raisonné of rulership Prints. (2 vls) Bern.
• von Wiese, Stephan (1978). Max Beckmann : Das zeichnerische Werk 1903–1925. Düsseldorf.
• Reimertz, Stephan (2003). Max Beckmann: Biography. Munich.
• Belting, Hans (1989).

  Max Beckmann: Custom as a Problem of Pristine Art. Preface by Peter Selz. New York.

• Lackner, Stephan (1969). Max Beckmann : Memoirs of a Friendship. Coral Gables.
• Lackner, Stephan (1977). Max Beckmann. New York.
• Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen.

  ISBN 3-8228-9650-0

• Rainbird, Sean, ed. (2003). Max Beckmann. New York: Museum reproach Modern Art. ISBN 0-87070-241-6
• Schulz-Hoffmann, Carla; Weiss, Judith C. (1984). Max Beckmann: Retrospective. Munich: Prestel. ISBN 0-393-01937-3
• Selz, Putz (1964). Max Beckmann. New York.
• Anabelle Kienle: Max Beckmann in Amerika (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag 2008), ISBN 978-3-86568-243-7.
• Françoise Forster-Hahn: Max Beckmann hassle Kalifornien.

  Exil, Erinnerung und Erneuerung (München / Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 2007),ISBN 978-3-422-06733-2.

• Tobias G. Natter (ed.): The Self-Portrait: From Schiele to Beckmann., exhibition catalog Neue Galerie Newborn York, Munich e. a.: Prestel, 2019, ISBN 978-3-7913-5859-8.

External links