Beginning

[NNadir]

Beginning (1949)

Max Beckmann (German, b. Leipzig 1884 – d,1950 New York City)

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear NNadir!

Wow, what an enigmatic painting...

I think you last one was by Beckmann too, wasn't it?

I'm not sure I understand this one at all. But it is very striking.

Thank you for posting it.

[NNadir]

2. My pleasure Peg. This painting has an interesting story.

Max Beckmann was a very prominent artist in Weimar Germany, but he was dismissed from his academic post when the Nazis took power, and in the late 30's - after having his works displayed in the famous "degenerate art" show in Berlin - he was deported to the Netherlands. Then of course, the Nazis conquered the Netherlands. He lived in poverty and in semi-hiding but was discovered by the Nazis just before the Nazis were driven out, and they threatened to draft him, even though he was in his 60's.

Fortunately that didn't happen, but he lived in Amsterdam as a German national, and thus, even though he was an anti-Nazi - in a kind of netherland, unable to get a passport.

Finally however in 1947, he made his way to the United States and was given a university art position in St. Louis. He had been painting tryptchs - there are ten that are known to exist - beginning with one known as "Departure" around the time of his exile, and this one "Beginning" was a painting about his upbringing, largely, and it was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By 1950, Beckman had moved to New York, and the story goes that he was walking up to the Metropolitan from his apartment on 61st street to visit his own painting - this one - when he had a heart attack and died on the corner of 61st street and Park Avenue.

Beckmann's art is not as widely known as it should be, but he was definitely one of the great artists of the 20th century.