Max Beckmann was a German artist, renowned for the paintings and prints he made in a broadly expressionistic style in the first half of the 20th century. Many of these were self-portraits. Beckmann admitted to being obsessed by art and said that he ‘would meander through all the sewers of the world, through degradations and humiliations, in order to paint’.
Beckmann was born in the city of Leipzig in 1884, going on to study at the Great Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar. His early work showed influences ranging from Paul Cezanne to the Impressionists. However, his career as an avant-garde artist truly began with the advent of the World War I. Beckmann joined the medical corps in 1914, but was forced to quit after suffering a nervous breakdown — or what he called ‘injuries to the soul’ — the following year.
The mood and the palette of his paintings grew darker thereafter, his forms more angular, and his scenes invested with a greater sense of violence. A good example is The Night (1918–19), a nightmarish picture which today is found in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf.
In the 1920s, Beckmann produced a number of sardonic visions of life in the Weimar Republic and was strongly associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement which developed in Germany that decade.
In around 1930, he started painting triptychs, a format which Beckmann would successfully embrace for the rest of his career. These tended to be allegorical and large-scale. A famous example is Departure (1932–35), which was partly inspired by trepidation surrounding Hitler’s rise to power and which today forms part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The Nazis dismissed Beckmann from a teaching post he held at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and also removed his paintings from view at the National Gallery in Berlin. In 1937, several of his works were included in Entartete Kunst in Munich, an exhibition of art deemed ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis. A day after its opening, Beckmann relocated to Amsterdam, where he would spend all of World War II. He moved to the United States in 1947 and died there three years later.
In 2017, his painting Hölle der Vögel (1937–38) sold at Christie’s for US$20,605,000 — setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a work by Beckmann at auction.
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Un bar à Paris
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Mann mit Vogel
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Italienerin
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Stilleben mit Tulpen und Ausblick aufs Meer
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Stilleben mit Paletten
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Mondnacht am Meer (grün)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Stilleben mit Türkenbund (Blumen mit Zigarrenkiste)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Stilleben mit Rosen
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Adam und Eva
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis, Der Zeichner im Spiegel (Manon)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Tanzlokal
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis mit steifem Hut (Hofmaier 180.IIIB)
Max Beckmann
Berliner Reise 1922 (H. 212-222)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Tanzerin
MAX BECKMANN
Berliner Reise (H. 212-222)
Max Beckmann
Group Portrait, Eden Bar (H. 277 II.B.)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Jahrmarkt (Hofmaier 191-200)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Frühlingslandschaft mit Neubau
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Entkleidetes Café
Max Beckmann
Malepartus, from: Hölle
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis mit steifemHut (Self-Portrait in a Bowler Hat)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Gruppenbildnis Edenbar (Group Portrait, Eden Bar)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis mit steifem Hut (Self-Portrait in Bowler Hat)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Frontal Self-Portrait with House Gable in Background (Hofmaier 125 II B.a.)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Self-Portrait
Max Beckmann
Tamerlan (H. 284 B.)
Max Beckmann
Varieté (H. 304 B.d.)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Frontal Self-Portrait with House Gable in Background (Hofmaier 125 II.B.b.)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Die Ideologen, from Die Hölle
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Am Strand
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Stadtansicht mit Eisernem Steg
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Grosse Brücke
Max Beckmann
Frontal Self-Portrait with house gabe in background (Hofmaier, 125)
Max Beckmann
Die Familie, from: Hölle
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Porträt von Frau Marie Swarzenski
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis, from Tag und Traum (Hofmaier 357)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis, from: Gesichter
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Tamerlan (Tamerlane)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis mit Griffel, from Gesichter (Self-Portrait with Stylus)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Selbstbildnis von vorn, im Hintergrund Hausgiebel (Frontal Self-Portrait with House Gable in Background)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Bei der Toilette (Two Women Dressing)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Zwei Tanzpaare (Two Couples)
Max Beckmann
Self-Portrait (H. 226 III.B.e.)
Max Beckmann
Evening - Self-Portrait with the Battenbergs, from: Gesichter (H. 90 II.B.a.)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
In der Trambahn
Max Beckmann
Fastnacht (Hotmaier 231).
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Reiter mit Lanze
Max Beckmann
Declaration of War (H. 78 II.B.b.)
MAX BECKMANN (1884-1950)
Siesta