Max Beckmann : the formative years, 1915-1925 / edited by Olaf Peters ; preface by Ronald S. Lauder ; foreword by Renée Price ; with contributions by Anna Maria Heckmann, Jürgen Müller, Olaf Peters, Dietrich Schubert, Elisa Tamaschke, and Christiane Zeiller ; with translated texts by Max Beckmann and Heinrich Simon ; translation: Steven Lindberg.
Publisher:
Prestel ;
Copyright Date:
2023
Description:
304 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), portraits ; 29 cm
Catalog of an exhibition held at the Neue Galerie, New York, October 5, 2023-January 15, 2024. Includes bibliographical references (pages 292-297) and index.
Contents:
Becoming Beckmann. Transcendental objectivity : Max Beckmann's modernity / Olaf Peters -- From secessionist to individualist : Max Beckmann's career and reception, 1913 to 1925 / Anna Maria Heckmann -- Creative credo, 1918-20 / Max Beckmann -- Plates -- From war to stabilization. The war as conclusion and new beginning / Christiane Zeiller -- Self-portraits as draftsman : Beckmann with the sketchbook / Dietrich Schubert -- Smashed glass : Max Beckmann's print portfolio Hell / Elisa Tamaschke -- The artist in the state, 1927 / Max Beckmann -- Plates -- Max Beckmann : artlover / J.B. Neumann -- Max Beckmann / Heinrich Simon ; translated from the German by Steven Lindberg -- Before and after. "A wild, cruel, splendid life" : the young Max Beckmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the problem of German modernity / Jürgen Müller -- Reflected modernity : Max Beckmann's late work / Olaf Peters.
Summary:
"Beckmann's brief but profoundly jarring service as a medical orderly during World War I led to a nervous breakdown. He assimilated his experiences and incorporated recent and radical developments in art, such as Cubism and Expressionism, leading him to advance new pictorial conceptions beginning in 1915. To many of his contemporaries, the work Beckmann created between 1917 and 1925 placed him at the forefront of the latest developments in representational painting. In 1925, Beckmann's celebrated status was confirmed by his prominence in the groundbreaking "Neue Sachlichkeit" (New Objectivity) exhibition in Mannheim, although he later distanced himself from the term. This book will situate Beckmann artistically and historically. Essays by both established experts and emerging scholars investigate the seminal energy found in the work he created between 1915 to 1925 - a period to which the artist himself repeatedly returned over the course of his lifetime. The self-referential aspect of Beckmann's output is key to understanding his progression as an artist, which comes more clearly into focus via an analysis of these critical early years"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.