M. Beckmann “Liebespaar”

Title

M. Beckmann “Liebespaar”

Description

Drypoint etching from Max Beckman, signed by the artist.

ca. 1922

Artist

Beckmann (1884-1950)

Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (1884 in Leipzig - 1950 in New York City) was a German painter, graphic artist, sculptor, author and university professor. Beckmann took up painting at the end of the 19th century as well as the art-historical tradition and formed a figure-strong style, which he countered from 1911 to the emerging non-objectivity. In the summer of 1905 Beckmann worked on his painting Young Men by the Sea on the Danish North Sea (oil on canvas, 148 × 235 cm). The picture is stylistically influenced by Luca Signorelli and Hans von Marées with references to neoclassicism. In 1906 Beckmann received the Villa Romana Prize for this painting from the German Association of Artists, founded three years earlier. In the same year he also participated in the 11th exhibition of the Berlin Secession with two works. He declined the invitation to join the Dresden artists' group Brücke, but joined the Berlin Secession. The young artist's will to fame was expressed above all in forced disaster scenes; Impressionism and neoclassicism combined here to form a brute action painting. He rejected Expressionism. In contrast to his large-format paintings, Beckmann cultivated interiors and portraits, especially self-portraits; some of these works are fragrant and subtly atmospheric. Even in those years, hand drawings of old masterly perfection were created. The drawing should always remain the backbone of Beckmann's art. In 1908 the artist traveled to Paris again and in the autumn he had a son, Peter Beckmann, who became known as a cardiologist and researcher on aging. The following year, he exhibited abroad for the first time and made the following acquaintance of the art writer Julius Meier-Graefe, who campaigned for Beckmann until his death. Max Beckmann wanted to profile himself as a neo-conservative counter-model to the radical abstraction of painters such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, which emerged around 1910, and the non-objectivity of a Wassily Kandinsky. Like Max Liebermann or Lovis Corinth, he was looking for a modern form of figurative painting. The art dealer Israel Ber Neumann and the publisher Reinhard Piper contributed to Beckmann's prewar fame, which peaked around 1913, in which Hans Kaiser wrote the first monograph on him. Now the 29-year-old painter quit the Secession and founded the Free Secession in 1914. He continued to stay away from Expressionism, but was just as fascinated by the big city in graphics and painting. Max Beckmann would never work without purpose. Beckmann was a member of the Berlin Secession in his early days, but preferred to stylize himself as a loner. He contrasted modernity, especially Pablo Picasso and Cubism, with an idiosyncratic spatiality. He also developed a narrative and myth-creating painting, especially in ten triptychs. Beckmann is particularly important as a concise artist, portrait artist (also numerous self-portraits) and as a subtle illustrator. He remained true to this art style until the end of his life.