München

2007

Pinakothek der Moderne

Max Beckmann

Exile in Amsterdam

1937 – 1947

Max Beckmann was born in Leipzig in 1884. During the twenties he became a much honored painter and in 1925 was offered a professorship at the Städel School of Fine Arts in Frankfurt, which he held until 1933 when the Nazi government dismissed him.

After having been declared an “entarteter Kúnstler” (degenerate Artist) in 1937 – Hitler called him a “cultural Bolshevik” - and 500 of his paintings were confiscated, he and his wife fled to Amsterdam, where they kept a very low profile. He barely suffered Holland - and vice versa - but he would spend ten of his most productive years there, suviving by selling an occasinal painting through underground art dealers. He never returned to Germany. In 1947 he was finally admitted to the US. He died in New York of a heart attack in 1950.

The Munich exibition of 2007 was the first comprehensive solo presentation of two-thirds of his work since the Degenerate Art Exhibiton in July 1937 in the same town. For me it became an eye-opener. I have seen single works by Beckmann in New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Berlin but had never been able to connect these enigmatic yet intellectually challenging canvasses. This is the motivation for creating this non-public webpage for friends and relatives.

As in my Richter page I tried to give the viewer a chance to see for him/herself withholding my commentary. The catalogue of the exhibition presents extensive historical and art-critical comments to every painting by experts of the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Please help me protect this website. The images are protected by copyrights owned by the ARS and should not be copied, nor be linked to or the address be passed on to others.