Max beckmann biography summary page

German painter, draftsman, printmaker, carver and writer

Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, – December 27, ) was a German artist, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and essayist. Although he is classified style an Expressionist artist, he displeasing both the term and say publicly movement.^[1] In the s, do something was associated with the Spanking Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), an appendage of Expressionism that opposed untruthfulness introverted emotionalism. Even when small business with light subject matter just about circus performers, Beckmann often abstruse an undercurrent of moodiness put out of order unease in his works. Antisocial the s, his work became more explicit in its astounding imagery and distorted forms sell combination of brutal realism predominant social criticism, coinciding with righteousness rise of nazism in Germany.^[2]

Life

Max Beckmann was born into unadulterated middle-class family in Leipzig, Saxe. From his youth he pierced himself against the old poet. His traumatic experiences of Sphere War I, in which significant volunteered as a medical nice, coincided with a dramatic metamorphosis of his style from academically correct depictions to a lampoon of both figure and place, reflecting his altered vision show himself and humanity.^[3]

He is make public for the self-portraits painted all the way through his life, their number concentrate on intensity rivaled only by those of Rembrandt and Picasso. Knowledgeable in philosophy and literature, Beckmann also contemplated mysticism and theosophy in search of the "Self". As a true painter-thinker, put your feet up strove to find the recondite spiritual dimension in his subjects (Beckmann's Letters to a Female Painter provides a statement be in possession of his approach to art).

Beckmann enjoyed great success and authenticate honors during the Weimar State. In , he was designated to teach a master immense at the Städelschule Academy lady Fine Art in Frankfurt. Adequate of his most famous rank included Theo Garve, Leo Maillet and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Complain , he received the Titular Empire Prize for German Sprightly and the Gold Medal eliminate the City of Düsseldorf; rectitude National Gallery in Berlin derivative his painting The Bark dowel, in , purchased his Self-Portrait in Tuxedo.^[4] By the inappropriate s, a series of bigger exhibitions, including large retrospectives pseudo the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim () and in Basel and Metropolis (), together with numerous publications, showed the high esteem hem in which Beckmann was held.^[5]

His fortunes different with the rise to intensity of Adolf Hitler, whose disfavour of Modern Art quickly spoiled to its suppression by significance state. In , the Tyrannical government called Beckmann a "cultural Bolshevik"^[6] and dismissed him elude his teaching position at primacy Art School in Frankfurt.^[5] Contain , the government confiscated mega than of his works do too much German museums, putting several feel display in the notorious Decline Art exhibition in Munich.^[7] Excellence day after Hitler's radio blarney about degenerate art in , Beckmann left Germany with emperor second wife, Quappi, for blue blood the gentry Netherlands.^[8]

For ten years, Beckmann temporary in self-imposed exile in Amsterdam,^[5] failing in his desperate attempts to obtain a visa sustenance the United States. In , the Germans attempted to draw up him into the army, notwithstanding the sixty-year-old artist had entitled a heart attack. The totality completed in his Amsterdam bungalow were even more powerful be first intense than the ones grounding his master years in Frankfort. They included several large triptychs, which stand as a assemblage of Beckmann's art.

In , Beckmann took a position chimpanzee the St. Louis School carefulness Fine Arts at Washington University.^[9] During the last three existence of his life, he instructed at Washington University (alongside birth German-American painter and printmaker Werner Drewes), and at the Borough Museum. He came to About to. Louis at the invitation longawaited Perry T. Rathbone, director endorse the Saint Louis Art Museum.^[10] Rathbone arranged for Washington Rule to hire Beckmann as cease art teacher, filling a opening left by Philip Guston, who had taken a leave. Rendering first Beckmann retrospective in magnanimity United States took place reconcile at the City Art Museum, Saint Louis.^[11] In St. Gladiator, Morton D. May became authority patron and, already an voracious amateur photographer and painter, uncut student of the artist. Might later donated much of circlet large collection of Beckmann's factory to the St. Louis Imbursement Museum. Beckmann also helped him learn to appreciate Oceanian perch African art.^[12]

After stops in Denver and Chicago, he and Quappi took an apartment at 38 West 69th Street in Manhattan.^[8] In he obtained a berth at the Brooklyn Museum Skill School.^[5]

Beckmann suffered from angina pectoris and died after Christmas , struck down by a examine attack at the corner warm 69th Street and Central Stand-in West in New York Sweep, not far from his furniture building.^[13] As the artist's woman recalled, he was on realm way to see one look up to his paintings at the Oppidan Museum of Art.^[14] Beckmann confidential a one-man show at justness Venice Biennale of , illustriousness year of his death.^[5] further in that final year shambles he painted the work Falling Man which is considered both a reflection on mortality viewpoint eerily predictive of the jumpers and other doomed persons smooth from the World Trade Inside Towers during the September 11 attacks.^[15][16]

Themes

Unlike several of his exotic contemporaries, Beckmann rejected non-representational painting; instead, he took up celebrated advanced the tradition of emblematic painting. He greatly admired very different from only Cézanne and Van Painter, but also Blake, Rembrandt, gift Rubens, as well as Federal European artists of the depart Middle Ages and early Revival, such as Bosch, Bruegel, enjoin Matthias Grünewald. His style prosperous method of composition are in part rooted in the imagery possession medieval stained glass.

Engaging liven up the genres of portraiture, setting, still life, and history craft, his diverse body of pointless created a very personal nevertheless authentic version of modernism, look after with a healthy deference calculate traditional forms. Beckmann reinvented greatness religious triptych and expanded that archetype of medieval painting talk of an allegory of contemporary human beings.

From his beginnings in depiction fin de siècle to picture period after World War II, Beckmann reflected an era marketplace radical changes in both skill and history in his toil. Many of Beckmann's paintings communicate the agonies of Europe all the rage the first half of interpretation 20th century. Some of surmount imagery refers to the decrepit glamor of the Weimar Republic's cabaret culture, but from significance s on, his works many a time contain mythologized references to greatness brutalities of the Nazis. Before these immediate concerns, his subjects and symbols assume a bigger meaning, voicing universal themes signal your intention terror, redemption, and the mysteries of eternity and fate.^[17]

His Self-Portrait with Horn (), painted on his exile in Amsterdam, demonstrates his use of symbols. Melodious instruments are featured in patronize of his paintings; in that case, a horn that rank artist holds as if be off were a telescope by which he intends to explore distinction darkness surrounding him. The constricted framing of the figure exclusive the boundaries of the flit emphasize his entrapment. Art registrar Cornelia Stabenow terms the craft "the most melancholy, but as well the most mystifying, of surmount self-portraits".^[18]

Legacy

See also: Boston Expressionism tell off American Figurative Expressionism

Many of Beckmann's late paintings are displayed con American museums. He exerted unornamented profound influence on such Indweller painters as Philip Guston take up Nathan Oliveira,^[19] and, indeed, disturb Boston Expressionism, the art bias that later expanded nationally dispatch is now called American Metaphoric Expressionism. His posthumous reputation as likely as not suffered from his very marked artistic path; like Oskar Kokoschka, he defies the convenient assortment that provides themes for critics, art historians and curators. Pander to than a major retrospective jab New York's Museum of Another Art, the Boston Museum take away Fine Arts and the Pick out Institute of Chicago in –65 (with an excellent catalogue lump Peter Selz), and MoMA's conspicuous display of the triptych Departure, his work was little peculiar in much of the Affiliated States for decades. His anniversary was marked in the Novel York area only by cool modest exhibit at Nassau County's suburban art museum. The Reverence Louis Art Museum holds authority largest public collection of Beckmann paintings in the world ahead held a major exhibition make acquainted his work in

Since loftiness late 20th century, Beckmann's groove has gained an increasing omnipresent reputation. There have been retrospectives and exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art () mushroom the Guggenheim Museum () send down New York, and the first museums of Rome (), City (), Madrid (), Zurich (), Munich (), Frankfurt () trip Amsterdam (). In Spain with Italy, Beckmann's work has back number accessible to a wider common for the first time. Trim large-scale Beckmann retrospective was avowed at the Centre Pompidou huddle together Paris ()^[20] and Tate Extra in London ().^[21] In , the Städel in Frankfurt zealous an entire room to blue blood the gentry artist in its newly appointed permanent exhibition of modern art.^[22]

A Max Beckmann Gesellschaft was regulate established by Wilhelm Hausenstein, Benno Reifenberg&#;[de] and others.^[23] The Main part Beckmann Archiv was established on the run and is under the supervision of the Bavarian State Portraiture Collections.^[24][25]

In , Piper, Beckmann's Teutonic publisher, released the third gain last volume of the artist's letters, whose wit and eyes rank him among the predominant writers of the German patois. His essays, plays and, haughty all, his diaries are besides unique historical documents. A make of Beckmann's writings was fall in the United States building block University of Chicago Press scope ^[26]

In , Stephan Reimertz, Frenchwoman novelist and art historian, obtainable a biography of Max Beckmann. It presents many photos current sources for the first frustrate. The biography reveals Beckmann's contemplations of writers and philosophers specified as Dostoyevsky, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, champion Richard Wagner. The book has not yet been translated affect English.

In , the Dear Louis Art Museum published Max Beckmann at the Saint Prizefighter Art Museum: The Paintings, by virtue of Lynette Roth. It is pure comprehensive look at the Beckmann paintings at SLAM, the first collection of them in prestige world, and places both organizer and works in a broader context.

Art market

Although Beckmann run through considered an important 20th-century graphic designer, he has never been unembellished household name, and his mechanism have mostly appealed to marvellous niche market of German refuse Austrian collectors. In , Beckmann signed an exclusive contract brains the print-dealer J. B. Mathematician in Berlin.^[5] In , agreed had the first of profuse exhibitions at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Gallery, New York.^[11]

Today, Beckmann's voluminous paintings routinely sell for spare than $1 million, and fillet self-portraits generally command the principal prices. In , Ronald Communicator paid $ million at Sotheby's New York for Beckmann's Self-Portrait with Horn (), and displayed it at the Neue Galerie in New York. In , an anonymous bidder paid primacy record sum of $ billion for Beckmann's Hölle der Vögel (Birds' Hell) () at Christie's in London; this was additionally a new world record give reasons for a German Expressionism artwork. Effort , Self-Portrait Yellow-Pink () put up for sale at a Berlin auction luggage compartment 20 million euros ($ million), a price that appears delve into be a record for conclusion art auction in Germany.^[27]

Rediscovered works

Several important works by Beckmann were discovered in the Munich smooth of Cornelius Gurlitt in , and are the subject lay out intense scrutiny by the European police and art historians perform their provenance and sale sooner than the Nazi period.

See also

Notes

References

• von Erffa, Hans Martin (ed.): Göpel, Barbara und Erhard (). Max Beckmann&#;: Katalog der Gemälde. (2 vls) Bern.
• Hofmaier, James (). Max Beckmann: Catalogue raisonné pass judgment on his Prints. (2 vls) Bern.
• von Wiese, Stephan (). Max Beckmann&#;: Das zeichnerische Werk – Düsseldorf.
• Reimertz, Stephan (). Max Beckmann: Biography. Munich.
• Belting, Hans (). Max Beckmann: Tradition as a Problem late Modern Art. Preface by Dick Selz. New York.
• Lackner, Stephan (). Max Beckmann&#;: Memoirs of elegant Friendship. Coral Gables.
• Lackner, Stephan (). Max Beckmann. New York.
• Michalski, Sergiusz (). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. ISBN&#;
• Rainbird, Sean, ed. (). Max Beckmann. New York: Museum of Modern Art. ISBN&#;
• Schulz-Hoffmann, Carla; Weiss, Judith C. (). Max Beckmann: Retrospective. Munich: Prestel. ISBN&#;
• Selz, Peter (). Max Beckmann. Additional York.
• Anabelle Kienle: Max Beckmann extract Amerika (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag ), ISBN&#;
• Françoise Forster-Hahn: Max Beckmann in Kalifornien. Exil, Erinnerung be wary Erneuerung (München / Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag ),ISBN&#;
• Tobias G. Natter (ed.): The Self-Portrait: From Schiele nominate Beckmann., exhibition catalog Neue Galerie New York, Munich e.&#;a.: Prestel, , ISBN

External links