Max Beckmann in New York

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 19, 2016–February 20, 2017

Opening October 19, 2016, the exhibition Max Beckmann in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will put a spotlight on the artist’s special connection with New York City. It will feature 14 paintings that Beckmann created while living in New York from 1949 to 1950, as well as 25 works, dating from 1920 to 1948, from New York collections. The exhibition assembles several groups of iconic works, including self-portraits; mythical, expressionist interiors; robust, colorful portraits of women and performers; landscapes; and triptychs. 

In late December 1950, Beckmann set out from his apartment on the Upper West Side of New York to see his  

Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket (1950), which was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition American Painting Today. However, on the corner of 69th Street and Central Park West, the 66-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack and never made it to the Museum. The poignant circumstance of the artist’s death served as the inspiration for the exhibition.

During the late 1920s, Max Beckmann (1884–1950) was at the pinnacle of his career in Germany—his work was presented by prestigious art dealers; he taught at the Städel Art School in Frankfurt and moved in a circle of influential writers, critics, publishers, and collectors. After the National Socialists denounced his work as “degenerate” and confiscated it from German museums in 1937, Beckmann left the country and immigrated to Holland, where he remained for 10 years.

After the war, and after rejecting offers to teach in Berlin and Munich, Beckmann accepted a temporary teaching position in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1947. He made his move to America permanent in 1948, seeing his emigration as marking the end of his exile. In early September 1949 he moved to New York City, which he described as “a prewar Berlin multiplied a hundredfold,” and began teaching at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He and his wife Mathilde “Quappi” Beckmann first lived at 234 East 19th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, moving in May 1950 to 38 West 69th Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. Life in Manhattan energized him and resulted in such powerful pictures as

Falling Man (1950)

and The Town (City Night) (1950).

Though Beckmann was new to the city, his work was not. Before his arrival, it had been known in New York for more than two decades through the efforts of two art dealers from Berlin, J. B. Neumann and Curt Valentin. Important paintings by the artist dating from the 1920s through the 1940s entered public and private collections in New York as a result of the close relationships Neumann and Valentin forged with collectors. Both dealers also befriended Alfred H. Barr, the director of the Museum of Modern Art from 1929 to 1943. With Barr, Neumann was instrumental in conceiving the museum’s exhibition German Painting and Sculpture in spring of 1931. Eight works by Beckmann dating from 1921 to 1929 were included in the exhibition. 

Among the first private collectors of his work was the German-born Dr. Hirschland, who, before 1930, acquired from Neumann the important

Self-Portrait on Yellow Ground with Cigarette (1923), which he bequeathed to the Museum of Modern Art in 1956.

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of the founders of the museum, in 1931 purchased  

Family Picture (1920) from Neumann; she then gave it to the Museum of Modern Art in 1935, where it was joined in 1942 by Barr’s purchase of the artist’s first triptych,

Departure (1932, 1933–35).

These early prominent collectors were followed by generations of others whose contributions will be on view in this exhibition at The Met.

Pictures with full credits:

1. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket
1950
Oil on canvas
55 1/8 × 36 in. (140 × 91.4 cm)
Framed: 66 15/16 in. × 48 in. × 3 3/16 in. (170 × 121.9 × 8.1 cm)
Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May
SL.9.2016.24.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

2. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Self-Portrait with a Cigarette
1923
Oil on canvas
23 3/4 × 15 7/8 in. (60.3 × 40.3 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. F. H. Hirschland, 1956
SL.9.2016.18.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

3. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Self-Portrait with Horn
1938
Oil on canvas
43 1/4 × 39 1/4 in. (109.9 × 101 cm)
Neue Galerie New York and Private Collection
SL.9.2016.19.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn



4. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Family Picture
1920
Oil on canvas
25 5/8 × 39.3 in. (65.1 × 100 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1935
SL.9.2016.18.2
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

5. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Galleria Umberto
1925
Oil on canvas
44 5/8 × 19 13/16 in. (113.3 × 50.3 cm)
Framed: 52 × 27 1/8 in. (132.1 × 68.9 cm)
Private Collection, Courtesy Neue Galerie, New York
SL.9.2016.14.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

6. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
The Bark
1926
Oil on canvas
70 × 35 in. (177.8 × 88.9 cm)
Framed: 71 1/2 × 36 1/8 in. (181.6 × 91.8 cm)
Richard L. Feigen, New York.
SL.9.2016.9.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

7. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
The Old Actress
1926
Oil on canvas
39 9/16 × 27 3/4 in. (100.5 × 70.5 cm)
Frame: 44 × 32 1/2 in. (111.8 × 82.6 cm)
Private Collection, New York
SL.9.2016.23.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

8. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Paris Society
1925 / 1931 / 1947
Oil on canvas
43 × 69 1/8 in. (109.2 × 175.6 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
SL.9.2016.16.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn




9. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Departure
1932-1933
Oil on canvas
Central panel: 84 3/4 × 45 3/8 in. (215.3 × 115.3 cm)
Left Panel: 84 3/4 × 39 1/4 in. (215.3 × 99.7 cm)
Right Panel: 84 3/4 × 39 1/4 in. (215.3 × 99.7 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously (by exchange), 1942
SL.9.2016.18.3
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

10. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Quappi in Grey
1948
Oil on canvas
42 1/2 × 31 1/8 in. (108 × 79.1 cm)
Frame: 55 × 44 in. (139.7 × 111.8 cm)
Private Collection, New York
SL.9.2016.8.3
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

11. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Beginning
1949
Oil on canvas
Overall: 69 x 125 1/2 in. (175.3 x 318.8 cm);
left (a): 65 × 33 1/2 in. (165.1 × 85.1 cm);
center (b): 69 × 59 in. (175.3 × 149.9 cm);
right (c): 65 × 33 1/2 in. (165.1 × 85.1 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967
67.187.53a-c
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

12. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Falling Man
1950
Oil on canvas
55 1/2 × 35 in. (141 × 88.9 cm)
Frame: 62 1/4 × 41 1/4 × 2 3/4 in. (158.1 × 104.8 × 7 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Max Beckmann
SL.9.2016.13.1
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

13. Max Beckmann (German, Leipzig 1884–1950 New York)
Carnival Mask, Green, Violet and Pink (Columbine)
1950
Oil on canvas
53 3/8 × 39 9/16 in. (135.5 × 100.5 cm)
Framed: 61 3/8 × 47 3/4 × 1 3/4 in. (155.9 × 121.3 × 4.4 cm)
Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May
SL.9.2016.24.2
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn