914. Max Beckmann (1884-1950), German,

Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket, 1950.

Oil on canvas, 140 x 91.4 cm. The Saint Louis

Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May,

Saint Louis. Expressionism.

 

 

Max Beckmann

(1884 Leipzig – 1950 Manhattan)

 

Max Beckman decided to be at a painter at only fifteen years of age and later became one of Germany’s most treasured modern artists. In 1900 he was accepted into the Grossherzogliche Sächoische Kunstschule in Weimar where he learned to draw and paint from sculptures and live models. By 1906 he was an accomplished painter and moved to Berlin to participate in the Berlin Secession, the voice that predominated the German painting scene at the time. His early work was reminiscent of large neoclassical compositions of religious or mythical subjects and themes, but after World War II his style changed dramatically and took on a Northern Gothic sensibility. The forms and lines of his work became more polished and mannered while the colours were more intense. His work became the pinpoint of social criticism and he increasingly used masked circus characters as allegorical figures, details that became the hallmark of his art.