Max Beckmann - One of the most important German artists of the 20th century

Max Beckmann is one of the most important German artists of the past century shaped the painting of the late 19th century with his figure -strong style

The son of a miller grew up in Leipzig and Braunschweig and had more interest in watercolors and illustrations from childhood, (self) portraits, foreign cultures and art history as in school education, from the boarding school at the age of 15 to apply against the will of his parents at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar.

His early developed anecdotal drawing art with a approach to the grotesque and his safe sense of form opened the doors, in his teacher, the Norwegian painter Carl Frithjof Smith, he found the "only teacher of his life".

Frithjof Smith was supposed to determine his painting style for life, the idea of ​​the expressive presentation took over Beckmann from him and kept her. At the art school in Weimar, however, he also learned the modern open -air painting that the Weimar had looked at French Impressionism, the Weimar school was the most advanced in Germany at the time.

After Beckmann has his declarations for painting and drawing in 1903, he goes to Paris , studies, reads and writes, is impressed by the work of Paul Cézannes and develops the preliminary studies for his first great work, “young men by the sea”.

He continues to Amsterdam, Scheveningen and the Haag, looks at Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer and Frans neck and paints landscapes in which it can be felt that he wants to overcome the fashions of time, Art Nouveau and Japonism. In 1904 he wants to continue to Italy, but only came up to Geneva and still visits the still unknown Isenheim altar in Colmar until he settles in Schöneberg near Berlin.

“young men by the sea” during a stay at the sea , in 1906 he already took part in the Weimar exhibition of the Berlin Secession, which earned well -paid portrait orders. The picture also received the honorary prize of the General German Artist Association, which contains a scholarship holder in Villa Romana in Florence.

The aspiring artist joined the Berlin Secession , married in the same year and travels to Paris and a scholarship holder to Florence with his wife, where further work was created to promote his career.

During this time, Beckmann beat a bridge between impressionism and neoclassicism in large -format, action -charged paintings, but also made fine portrait paintings full of mysterious atmosphere and incredibly precise hand drawings. After the time in Florence, the Beckmann family moved to a studio house in Berlin-Hermsdorf designed by Beckmann's wife in 1907.

The now “made artist” travels to Paris again in 1908, exhibited abroad for the first time in 1909, created graphic work and his famous double portrait with his wife Minna Beckmann-Tube and, like a scene from the downfall of Messina, which put him in the successor of a rubber.

Beckmann did not look for the huge abstraction like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso and did not want a resolution like Wassily Kandinsky, but just like Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, wanted a contemporary form to operate figurative painting. He met the taste of time to be famous in Germany.

Beckmann had already been elected to the board in the Berlin Secession in 1910, but this was only to lead to lifelong rejection of artist associations, he left out of the section in 1913 and was a co -founder of the “Free Secession” .

At that time, Beckmann had largely found his style in objective painting, only his collapse in the First World War brought a fundamental change into his artistic work again, the experiences of war give his style hard contours, the works of that time relentlessly show the hardness of the war.

Beckmann now settled in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen and slowly converts the brutal style of the war into a new way of graphics and painting. The lithograph cycle “The Hell” captures the life of the post -war period in its substance, but a Christian iconography becomes the subject, Beckmann's painting is increasingly expressive, the means are increasingly being behind the statement. Beckmann now shows a time -critical and ironic painting style, the content becomes more complex and develop its own symbol language.

Beckmann is now at a climax of fame in the 1920s, he is exhibited in the big cities of Europe, illustrated several books from the Piper publishing house, and a monograph appeared in 1924. This year he also meets Mathilde Kaulbach, who will be his new woman and a lot of painted model.

Further trips to France and Italy and intensive studies of theosophy, gnostic and ancient Indian teachings contributed to the development of his artistic style, and he also develops a new handling of the color in his pictures.

In 1925, Beckmann took over a master studio at the art school of the Frankfurt Städel Museum, his own paintings, “Double-Picture Carnival”, “Italian Fantasy” and “Galleria Umberto”, but show a disturbance and show something that the Beckmann biographer Stephan Reimmertz should call the artist.

The “Golden Time” was really over soon: in 1928 Beckmann was once again extensively recognized in Germany, with the Reichshrreis German Art, the Golden Medal of Düsseldorf and a large retrospective in the Kunsthalle Mannheim, and in 1930 six pictures of him were shown at the Biennale , but Beckmann is already heavily attacked by the National Socialist press.

In 1933 Beckmann was released without notice at the Städelschule, now he was only represented in the exhibitions “degenerate art” , with which all of Germany was covered. Beckmann retired to Berlin and brought his stunned and fear in anecdotal pictures, “Ochsenstall”, “The Little Fish” and self -portraits with a black cap or glass ball, and plastic work such as the “man in the dark” also became charges of the suddenly undesirable artist.

In 1937 Beckmann flew to Amsterdam , after hearing Hitler's speech on the opening of the “Great German Art Exhibition in Munich” on radio, Max Beckmann didn't want to have anything to do with Germany. In the Amsterdam exile Amsterdam, he painted desperate self -portraits such as “the liberated”, on which he breathes chains and puzzling pictures and triptychs that address his fate. In 1939 Beckmann applied for a visa for the United States, but had to stay in Amsterdam throughout the war, where he was in contact with German resistance.

It was not until 1947 that Max and Mathilde Beckmann received the entry permit to the USA, where Beckmann was appointed professor at the Art School at the Washington University in St. Louis, and from 1949 a teaching position was followed by the Brooklyn Museum in New York, Beckmann also went on travel across the United States, where he taught in California and Colorado.

In December 1950, Beckmann succumbed to a surprising heart attack in New York, his tenth triptych, “Amazon”, remained unfinished .

The pictures of the artist, which Heinz Berggruen describes as “the most important German artist of the 20th century alongside Ernst Ludwig Kirchner” , still stimulate today - and today they are incredibly valuable, for example, his “self -portrait with Horn” was sold for $ 22.6 million, the “View of the company by the sea near Marseille” was the best paid German paintings in 2009.

From both points of view, we would be happy if you find a “little Beckmann” in the attic and set it here on Kunstplaza to deal with this fascinating art, a pressure is of course also well suited.

Numerous works of art by Max Beckmann on Pinterest

Lina cream

Passionate author with lively art interest

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