Max Beckmann The Still Lifes

Max Beckmann
The Still Lifes
Max Beckmann
The Still Lifes
edited by
Karin Schick and Hubertus Gaßner
PRESTEL
Munich · London · New York
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8
Preface
Acknowledgments
11
Karin Schick
The Things outside Us
On Objects in Beckmann’s Still Lifes
26
Uwe M. Schneede
“The Most Complex Painting with Clear Points of Focus”
The Renewal of a Genre
35
Anna Heinze
The “Metaphysics of the Material”
Iconography and Subjects in Max Beckmann’s Still Lifes
46
Bärbel Küster
The Visibility of Things
Max Beckmann and the Modernist French Still Life
57
Christiane Zeiller
The Magic of the Visible
The Still Life in Max Beckmann’s Drawings
66
Simon Kelly
“A Wonderful Man and Teacher”
Max Beckmann as Instructor and the Role of Still Life
78
86
112
132
144
156
166
Early Still Lifes
Still Life with Table and Interior
Still Life as Architecture
Still Life with Landscape
Still Life with Figure
Still Life as Laboratory
Late Still Lifes
175
Heike Schreiber
Still Life with Fish
A Genesis
186
194
197
Biography
Selected Literature
Authors
Preface
Max Beckmann’s figure paintings, portraits, and landscapes have always enjoyed a great deal
of attention, but his fascinating still lifes are as yet little known; it was only in 2013 that an
exhibition of the “small” still lifes at the Franz Marc Museum in Kochel am See demonstrated
just how fertile a field this is and how great a need there is for further research. Our exhibition is the first extensive show dedicated to Beckmann’s still lifes. With roughly seventy paintings and watercolors, it displays the impressive variety of this genre, which extends through
all phases of Beckmann’s artistic career: from the earliest works starting in 1905 through the
war years, the Frankfurt period, his exile in Amsterdam, and the final years of his life in the
United States.
In his still lifes Beckmann is not only concerned with composition and space. In his images,
often arranged like stage sets, he celebrated the world in its richness of color, form, and materiality. But with wilted flowers, extinguished candles, and shining mirrors, he also makes reference to the transience of all life, as well as the pictorial programs of the Old Masters. By repeatedly integrating figures, landscapes, or self-portraits into his still lifes he also opens up exciting
borderlands to other genres and plays in a virtuoso manner with various levels of reality.
Beckmann presents several unusual objects from his personal surroundings in ever-new combinations: a Chinese ceramic toad, an African and a Peruvian vessel, a lamp whose base is shaped
like an elephant, and an impressive queen conch shell. These objects, too, can be seen in the
exhibition beside the paintings. They cast light on the questions of how Beckmann treats the
three-dimensional material with which he creates his two-dimensional paintings and how
much in his compositions is derived from reality and how much is thought up.
The Hamburger Kunsthalle possesses an important collection of works by Max Beckmann and in
the past has repeatedly dedicated itself to his oeuvre. Following upon the exhibitions of self-portraits (1993), landscapes (1998), and various graphic suites (2006/07), Max Beckmann. The Still Lifes
continues one of our museum’s successful traditions. We are delighted that the exhibition could
develop out of two paintings in our own holdings, which can now engage in a fruitful dialogue
with other works that can temporarily move in with us.
Without the willingness on the part of museums and private collectors in Germany, Switzerland, and especially the US to loan us important works for the exhibition, this ambitious project
could not have been realized. We have also been generously bestowed upon by the museums in
Saint Louis, Missouri, and Munich, with their world-renowned Beckmann collections. A number of works from private collections can be seen by the public in our exhibition for the first time
in many years.
Our sincere thanks are owed to the Freunde der Kunsthalle, the Hubertus Wald Stiftung, the
Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, and the Commerzbank Stiftung; their significant contributions made this exhibition possible in the first place. Special thanks also are due to Dipl.-Ing.
Werner Blohm, connoisseur and enthusiast of German expressionism, who spontaneously provided assistance by means of his private dedication.
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Max Beckmann’s daughter-in-law Maja and granddaughter Mayen Beckmann reacted favorably
to our project from the beginning and actively supported it in many ways. They are owed our
heartfelt thanks. We thank the authors, Simon Kelly, Bärbel Küster, Uwe M. Schneede, Heike
Schreiber, and Christiane Zeiller, for their substantial articles and new insights about the artist’s work. Our thanks go to Uwe M. Schneede for his valuable suggestions regarding the exhibition and the accompanying book. We also thank the Max Beckmann Archives in Munich,
especially Christiane Zeiller, for their help in many ways.
We are delighted that Prestel Verlag undertook the production of the catalogue and produced
an English edition in addition to the German one; our thanks go to Katharina Haderer, Anja
Besserer, and Rita Forbes for the enjoyable collaboration. Susanne Bax in Berlin is owed many
thanks for the overall creative design—of this book, a children’s booklet, and the exhibition
halls.
My very special thanks go to Karin Schick in particular, the curator of the exhibition. She
selected the theme with a sure sense of what was desirable and possible for our institution, and
through the contacts formed in her long museum experience was able to secure for the exhibition many works that were by no means certain of being lent. She devoted herself to the success
of this first-rate show with great passion and conviction; she is also responsible for the ambitious and extensive catalogue.
Karin Schick was supported by Anna Heinze as an assistant curator, who not only proficiently
and reliably assisted in the realization of the exhibition and catalogue, but also participated in
all aspects of the project with enthusiasm and resourcefulness. I thank her for this impressive
accomplishment.
My thanks go as well to all the colleagues at the Hamburger Kunsthalle who contributed to the
success of this exhibition. I would like to mention in particular the rich educational offerings,
conceived by Wybke Wiechell, and the notebook for children to fill in, conceived by the curator together with Katharina Bühler. For the first time in our institution, the exhibition will be
accompanied by a multimedia guide, developed by Anna Heinze and Karin Schick in collaboration with tonwelt GmbH in Berlin.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere wish that this exhibition, which forms another
link in the chain of our long-standing commitment to the work of Max Beckmann, is as successful with our visitors as it deserves to be!
Hubertus Gaßner
Director
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the following lenders and colleagues for their generous support:
Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen
Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig
Peter van den Brink, Adam C. Oellers
Hans-Werner Schmidt, Jan Nicolaisen, Marcus Andrew Hurttig,
The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor
Claudia Klugmann
Joseph Rosa, Orian Neumann, Carole McNamara, Elizabeth
Meerbusch Collection
Bahls
Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
Minnesota, Minneapolis
Frieder Burda, Judith Irrgang
Lyndel King, Diane Mullin, Laura Muessig
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich,
Pinakothek der Moderne
Klaus Schrenk, Oliver Kase, Simone Kober
Max Beckmann Archiv, Munich
Christian Lenz, Christiane Zeiller
Saint Louis Art Museum
Brent R. Benjamin, Simon Kelly, Diane Mallow
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Christiane Lange, Ina Conzen, Peter Frei
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC
Kerry Brougher, Elizabeth Duggal, Evelyn Hankins,
Annie Farrar
Collection of Frank Brabant, Wiesbaden
Kunstmuseum Winterthur
Dieter Schwarz, Ludmilla Sala
Merzbacher Kunststiftung
Werner and Gabriele Merzbacher
Galerie Andrea Caratsch, Zurich
Andrea Caratsch
Private collection, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Laura Bechter
Courtesy Galerie Pels-Leusden AG, Zurich
Verena Hartmann
The Baltimore Museum of Art
Doreen Bolger, Katy Rothkopf, Oliver Shell, Mandy B. Runnels
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
Udo Kittelmann, Joachim Jäger, Dieter Scholz, Luise Seppeler
Art collection of Rudolf-August Oetker GmbH, Bielefeld
Monika Bachtler
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Malcolm Rogers, Emily Beeny, Anna Siedzik
Kunsthalle Bremen — Der Kunstverein in Bremen
Christoph Grunenberg, Dorothee Hansen, Eva Fischer-Hausdorf,
Jutta Putschew
The Lewis Collection
Detroit Institute of Arts
Graham W. J. Beal, Michelle J. Smith
Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum Düren
Renate Goldmann, Markus Mascher, Tina Roßbroich
Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Düsseldorf
Ute Eggeling, Michael Beck
Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
Beat Wismer, Kay Heymer, Inge Maruyama
Kunsthalle Emden
Frank Schmidt, Katharina Henkel, Marlies Tjaden
Private collection, courtesy Galerie Artvera’s, Genf
Sofia Komarova, Denise Marroquin
Sprengel Museum Hannover
Reinhard Spieler, Carina Plath, Brigitte Nandingna,
Eva Köhler
as well as those who wish to remain anonymous.
For their advice and help, thanks to:
Maja and Mayen Beckmann
Nora von Achenbach, Caroline and Steven Adler, Angelika
Arnoldi-Livie, Claudia Banz, Helen and Werner Blohm,
Andrea Caratsch, Thomas le Claire, Andrea Crane, Barbara
Dickenberger, Christian Dräger, Richard L. Feigen, Evelyne
Ferlay, Manuela Fischer, Rolf and Brigitte Gardey, Barbara
Göpel, Verena Hartmann, Margret Heuser, Clara Himmelheber,
Claudia Kanowski, Micaela Kapitzky, Hans-Peter Keller, Simon
Kelly, Cathrin Klingsöhr-Leroy, Jeanette Kokott, Eberhard W.
Kornfeld, Hannemarie Kropatscheck, Bärbel Küster, Ulrich
Luckhardt, Karsten Müller, Henrike Mund, Michaela Oberhofer,
Frank d’Oleire, Kurt and Isa Overlack, Nina Peter, Renée Price,
Christiane zu Rantzau, Sabine Rewald, Lynette Roth, Katharina
Sayn-Wittgenstein, Claudia Schicktanz, Alexandra Schiffer,
Martin H. Schmidt, Uwe M. Schneede, Bernd Schultz, Christine
Stauffer, Silke and Raimund Thomas, Bernd J. Wagner, Margit
and Rolf Weinberg, Johannes Wuerdig, Laurin Würdig, Wolfgang
Wittrock, Christiane Zeiller, and Roman Zieglgänsberger.
The Things outside Us
Karin Schick
On Objects in Beckmann’s Still Lifes
Max Beckmann was an artist of great intellectuality and imagination. His ten triptychs, painted
between 1932 and 1950, in which he drew upon antique, Christian, and non-European mythology
to create new worlds and modern myths, are among the outstanding works of twentieth-century art. The imaginative achievement of realizing even complex compositions with little
preparation, and the ability to interpret his own time in a visionary manner in his art, provide a
picture of Beckmann as an artist on the “path to myth,”1 as the “constructor of a world theater.”2
His staging of his own person in self-portraits and photographs as a powerful, strong-minded,
and introverted man fit seamlessly with this description.
But Beckmann was certain that the mind also needed the senses, that abstraction needed
respect for the object, and that the great blueprint of the world needed the close study of nature.
Only in encountering the individual object, in precise perception, could the artist free himself
from reality and arrive at the genuinely distinctive expression: “Everything intellectual and
transcendent is joined together in painting by the uninterrupted labor of the eyes. Each shade
of a flower, a face, a tree, a fruit, a sea, a mountain is noted eagerly by the intensity of the senses,
to which is added, in a way of which we are not conscious, the work of the mind, and in the end
the strength or weakness of the soul. It is this genuine, eternally unchanging center of strength
that makes mind and senses capable of expressing personal things.”3
Beckmann, who was described by his contemporaries as a sensualist, an empathetic friend, and
a caring teacher, saw the subject in the creative act as being in a dialogue, even a debate, with
the represented object—and he saw this not only as a necessity for art, but also as a mandate for
artists to work on themselves: “The important thing is first of all to have a real love for the visible
world that lies outside ourselves as well as to know the deep secret of what goes on within ourselves. For the visible world in combination with our inner selves provides the realm where we
may seek infinitely for the individuality of our own souls. In the best art this search has always
existed. It has been, strictly speaking, a search for something abstract. And today it remains
urgently necessary to express even more strongly one’s own individuality. Every form of significant art from Bellini to Henri Rousseau has ultimately been abstract.”4
For Beckmann, the aspiration of uniting the poles of individual and general, of precise looking
and free representation was aimed at all artistic genres and contents. But whereas in portraiture
he endeavored to do justice to the people represented, in landscape painting predominantly to
re-create earlier places, and in mythological figure paintings to first create a world, he may have
felt freer with regard to the inanimate content of a still life. In lush bouquets of flowers he could
celebrate direct sensuous experience, but also construct complex arrangements of objects in
ambitious pictorial architectures: the still life was an interface of sensation and mind, of nature
and abstraction.
The main characters in Beckmann’s still lifes are, for one, all sorts of flowers and, for another,
objects from his everyday surroundings, among them several exotic pieces of art which he took
with him from Frankfurt via Berlin to Amsterdam, and then from Amsterdam to Saint Louis
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and from Saint Louis to New York; these are the focus of this essay. Considering the continuous
presence and availability of these objects, the question arises of how close Beckmann remained
to reality in his still lifes and what he imagined; how much there is of the objects in his paintings and how much there is of himself.
Studio. Frankfurt
Fig. 1
Still Life with Fish and Paper Flower,
1923, Frederick R. Weisman Art
Museum at the University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, Gift of Ione
and Hudson D. Walker, 1953.288
Fig. 2
Stirrup-spout vessel with snake motif,
Peru, Moche, AD 1–800, fired clay,
painted, height 28 cm, diameter 16 cm,
private collection
“Max never set the things up for his still lifes; he also scarcely ever made sketches for them. Whatever aroused and unleashed these images he generally painted directly on the canvas.”5 As Beckmann’s second wife, Mathilde, wrote, few preparatory works exist by Beckmann for still lifes;6
nor did he presumably set up the overall arrangement to be painted from life.7 Yet during his
time in Frankfurt, in the 1920s, he frequently took important objects into his studio as models for
his still lifes. After paying the artist a visit at Schweizer Straße 3, Benno Reifenberg, a journalist
and later the director of the arts section of the Frankfurter Zeitung, noted: “When Max Beckmann
showed pictures in the studio high above the Main River, at first all the paintings stood with
their faces to the wall. . . . The light from the north windows fell upon the drawing table; in front
of the mirror stood the red-brown Mexican vase, from which projected a paper pinwheel in a
children’s pink.”8 With this, he described in detail the central scene of the painting Still Life with
Fish and Paper Flower (fig. 1 / p. 93), executed in 1923, in which Beckmann depicted a Peruvian stirrup-spout vessel in his possession (fig. 2). He presumably did not place the fresh fish, mushrooms,
and leeks beside it, but the starting point of his composition was an actual scene arranged in his
studio—with an easel presumably leaning backward against the wall.
In comparing the still extant bulbous vessel with its depiction, not only is the pink-brown shade
in the image seen to be close to reality, but numerous other details as well: the V-shaped transition from the upper shaft to the rounded tube, the spike on the snake’s head and the fine tongue
in its wide-opened mouth, the decorative forms terminating toward the front, shaped like ears
of grain, on the vessel’s sides. Beckmann even placed the highlight precisely on the most convex
part of the rounded form. The freedom of the composition unfolds here in closest proximity to
the real object; this is true as well of a graphite drawing from the same time (p. 104).
Beckmann encountered a wooden African sculpture (fig. 4) with similar representational precision. He had received this ceremonial vessel from the Cameroon grasslands9 as a gift from his
friend Heinrich Simon, the editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung. A buffalo, decorated with leopard
spots,10 stands on a round ring base and bears a cylinder-shaped vessel, its rim ornamented with
stylized lizard-like figures. In Still Life with African Sculpture (fig. 3), painted at the beginning of
1924, Beckmann gave the object a stronger coloristic contrast between its base shade and the
decorative drawing, but otherwise rendered it with great accuracy; he even copied the crack in
the cylinder’s side. He ignored only the animal’s ears, presumably because he took the buffalo’s
12
horns for the elongated ears of a panther, and probably for the same reason gave the animal a
predator’s set of teeth.11 With the addition of a floral bouquet of pink tulips and mimosa branches,
some fruit, a fan, and an issue of the Frankfurter Zeitung—an homage to the giver—Beckmann
transported the wooden sculpture from everyday life into an image and made it the main motif
of his still life.
A second look at the real sculpture reveals numerous small green paint splatters on the base, the
animal’s body, and the cylinder—but only on its right side as seen from the front: the half, that is,
that Beckmann represented in the image; the other, left, side is completely devoid of stains. The
color of the paint splatters corresponds to the green portions of the painting of 1924. In describing Beckmann’s artistic praxis, his wife explained: “In order to achieve the correct consistency
of the mixture, he dipped his brush first in a large container of turpentine before taking up paint
on the brush; he flung the excess liquid off with one or two backward movements of his lower
arm. In this way the floor of Beckmann’s studios . . . became covered over and over with paint
splatters. A kind of mosaic or a kind of pointillistic chance effect emerged.”12 Thus we see that in
working on Still Life with African Sculpture, the artist took the central object of his image with him
into the studio in order to depict it face-to-face, leaving upon it the typical traces of his working
method.
Fig. 3
Still Life with African Sculpture, 1924,
private collection
Fig. 4
Ceremonial vessel, Cameroon Grasslands, light wood
with patina, 38.5 x 24 x 22.5 cm, private collection
13
Fig. 5
Earthenware vessel, Peru, Sicán (Lambayeque),
ca. AD 1000, blackware, 21.5 x 13.5 x 10.5 cm, private collection
Fig. 6
Still Life with Pears, 1926, private collection
Fig. 7
Still Life with Cactuses, 1918,
whereabouts unknown
Fig. 8
Still Life with Mexican Figure, 1931,
Saint Louis Art Museum,
bequest of Morton D. May
Fig. 9
Vase, Denmark (Bing & Grøndahl,
Kopenhagen), stoneware, glazed,
height 23.5 cm, diameter 14.5 cm,
private collection
14
In 1924 and 1925 Beckmann found himself at a first high point of his creativity, and his art was
much admired. In 1924 the Frankfurter Kunstverein honored him with a solo exhibition, where,
among other works, Still Life with African Sculpture could be seen. In 1925/26 he took part in the
exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit in Mannheim, curated by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, which for the
first time presented the German artists who, in a counteraction to expressionism, dedicated
themselves once again to figures and objects in precise representations; in the second venue of
this exhibition, in Chemnitz, his Still Life with Fish and Paper Flower was also presented. In October 1925 Beckmann was ultimately appointed teacher at the Städelschule. These achievements
demonstrated to him that his painting and the contents of his images had their finger on the
pulse of the time and confirmed him on his path.
Beckmann was greatly interested in non-European art, but was not a connoisseur collector. The
relatively few objects he possessed were heterogeneous in orientation and quality. The objects
he lived with and that appealed to him as a painter were often perhaps accidental discoveries,
at other times gifts, and then again objects that his second wife, Mathilde von Kaulbach, had
brought with her into their marriage in 1925 or later inherited. The objects that Beckmann most
enjoyed integrating into his works generally exhibit figural elements. In 1926, in Still Life with
Pears (fig. 6), he depicted a still extant Peruvian clay vessel (fig. 5). In order to show both its ornamentally decorated front as well as the expressive profile of a head, Beckmann rotated the two
portions ninety degrees toward each other; he omitted the handle mounted at the back of the
head. Together with a Danish vase (fig. 9) and an African wooden cup13 containing a single rose in
full bloom, the clay vessel forms an elegant and exotic trio on a small table.
Beckmann first introduced a cup in the shape of a head in 1918 in Still Life with Cactuses (fig. 7).
In 1931, thirteen years later, he brought it out once again and placed it together with the stirrup-spout vessel in a narrow oval image: In Still Life with Mexican Figure (fig. 8 / p. 120) the head,
no longer recognizable as an object of daily use, gazes with round eyes and dilated black pupils
musingly, surprised, or fearfully into the distance, while the snake, highlighted, rears up beside
him. In 1931 Beckmann also painted Studio with Table and Glasses (fig. 10 / p. 131), thus reactivating
another object from his collection, the African buffalo vessel. Unlike in the painting of 1924, here
he used only the figurally indistinct back of the sculpture for his composition (fig. 11), abstracting further from reality: while two rear legs and between them the tail, reaching to the ring base,
are recognizable, the connector between the back of the animal and the cylinder, as well as the
back of the buffalo’s head, are missing—the cylinder sits directly upon the animal, making its
individual parts fit into the still life as purely ornamental forms.
Around 1927 Beckmann’s artistic interest was no longer directed toward precision and a wealth
of detail; his painting had become more vigorous and independent. But ascribing this to purely
stylistic reasons alone seems insufficient: hitherto Beckmann had staged his objects as exotic
events entwined by flowers, he had vied with their formal richness and demonstrated his own
virtuosity. Now he endowed the objects with a dark and uncanny side, and a surprising inner
Fig. 10
Studio with Table and Glasses, 1931,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, Pinakothek der
Moderne
Fig. 11
Ceremonial vessel, Cameroon
Grasslands, light wood with patina,
38.5 x 24 x 22.5 cm, private collection
15
liveliness. In Studio (Night) (p. 160), begun in 1931 and overpainted seven years later, not only did
he redefine the stirrup-spout vessel into a flower vase, placing within it succulent orchids with
wide-opened, red-dappled, mouth-like blossoms, but he changed the warm reddish hue of the
object to match the luminous yellow of the studio wall and the telescope, and bent the head of
the snake in the opposing direction. The real object in its multifaceted appearance was apparently no longer his main interest: here it is the motif of the snake that is central; whether as a
symbol of harm or healing is a question the artist leaves open.
Beckmann was already in exile in Amsterdam when he finished Studio (Night) in 1938. After
increasing attacks by the National Socialists from 1931 onwards, and after being dismissed from
his teaching position in 1933, he had immigrated to Holland with his wife, Mathilde, in July 1937.
With this exile, an important period of recognition as a painter with a strong position in society
and life came to an end.
Fig. 12
Still Life with Fish and Shell, 1942,
private collection
Living Environment. Amsterdam
In Amsterdam Max and Mathilde Beckmann lived in the center of the city, on the second floor
of Haus Rokin 85, in a two-room apartment with a living room facing the street and a small bedroom facing an inner court; a steep staircase led to the studio one story higher. The apartment is
documented in detail in drawings by Mathilde Beckmann and in these, in addition to the furniture, kitchen utensils, and personal items, the small and large art objects with which the couple
now shared a small space are recorded as well (pp. 18–19 and fig. 14).
High up on the secretary in Beckmann’s bedroom lay the large shell, which he had first depicted
in 1926 (fig. 14); in Amsterdam it would become a favorite pictorial motif. It is actually the imposing shell of a full-grown Caribbean queen conch.14 Mathilde Beckmann, to whom it belonged,15
may have purchased it in an antique or curiosity shop. The shell is magnificent from all sides
(fig. 13): its body is wound like a spiral, roundly voluminous and diagonally striated; the protruding edge of the lip seems like a wing. The whorls and the transition to the body are studded with
knob-like spines. The outside of the shell is white; along the aperture it is pink.
Due to its considerable weight, the shell lies most securely on its aperture. If turned over, it needs
to be stabilized or it tends to tip over. But with its erotic impression, this side was Beckmann’s
favorite view to depict and its sensual meaning could be extensive for him: in Still Life with Pink
Shell (p. 101), already painted in 1926, he staged the object with delicate white lilac blossoms, a
small figure of a cat, and a wooden Mexican good luck bird;16 in Still Life with Skulls (p. 111), executed in 1945, he had it commune with three skulls, thus combining Eros and Thanatos.17 The
spines on the whorls, between which the lilac is skillfully placed in Still Life with Pink Shell, took
on an ever greater presence in Beckmann’s images: In Still Life with Large Shell of 1939 (p. 149),
although the shell is an erotic attribute of the woman, it also seems like an equal partner at table.
Fig. 13
Shell (queen conch), Caribbean,
13 x 27.5 x 23 cm, private collection
16
In the watercolor Still Life with Toy and Shell (p. 107), executed in Berlin in 1934, the shell has a
mouth and ears like the horse beside it, and in the painting Still Life with Fish and Shell (fig. 12 /
p. 103), produced in Amsterdam in the winter of 1942, it also resembles an animal: with pointed
ears and open mouth it appears to patiently lie in wait for the two fish below it, as the passing
of time is measured by a clock. Shells have always been favorite objects in still life painting,18
but they have seldom been construed in as vigorous and animalistic a way as in Beckmann’s
images.
On the same day as Still Life with Fish and Shell, on December 17, 1942, Beckmann began the painting Still Life with Nightlamp (fig. 17 / p. 108). In its center he placed a modern white ceramic lamp,
its pedestal designed in the form of an elephant (fig. 16). Beckmann interpreted the object freely:
as an enthusiastic visitor to the zoo and circus, he transformed the figure, assembled of rounded
forms, into a credible small elephant who appears to be marching and trumpeting with a raised
trunk. On its back the animal still bears a lampshade painted with Asian motifs by Mathilde
Beckmann; it no longer exists and was already replaced during Beckmann’s lifetime. The painting is kept to shades of yellow, white, and black, with a few accents in red and blue; yellow dominates and probably represents the light given off by the lamp, shining more strongly downward
and more weakly upward. In Amsterdam during the war years, compulsory blackouts repeatedly
reigned in the streets and houses in order to deprive the enemy of clear targets. The Beckmanns
especially suffered from this lack of light in the fall and winter. Due to nocturnal bombing raids,
Max Beckmann developed sustained insomnia and frequently lay awake at night, reading or
working, often only by candlelight: electric light was a luxury.
A consideration of the pen drawing Self-Portrait, the Draftsman in a Mirror (Manon) (fig. 15), produced in 1940, as well as a watercolor by Mathilde Beckmann that portrays the bedroom in
Amsterdam and probably shows Beckmann during an afternoon nap (fig. 14), clearly shows that
the painting Still Life with Nightlamp represents a concrete location in the room: It depicts Beckmann’s nightstand with curved legs in the niche between the bed and the tall secretary; at the
upper left a bookcase is visible, at the lower left a sheet or pillow, to the right a part of the secretary. The elephant lamp—according to Mathilde’s drawing—was sometimes also placed on the
round table in the center of the room, but in the evening probably once again by the bed. Still Life
with Nightlamp is a scene of insomnia: the painter, sitting on the bed, looks to the left and finds a
nocturnal companion in the elephant.
Also on December 17, 1942, Beckmann planned out the painting Night Still Life with Sunflowers
(fig. 18), in format and subject matter a pendant to the previous work. Two circles of flowers
seen from the front now represent a symbolic source of light for nocturnal reading—among the
books on the table is one by André Gide19—while the companion beneath the table is now a living
animal: Butchy, a young red-black Pekingese, who belonged to the family from 1940 to 1955 and
was in a sense a child substitute.20 Beckmann loved animals and also developed personal relationships to animals in the zoo—in Amsterdam he regularly visited the bison Marinus and the
17
Mathilde and Max Beckmann at the Dining Table in the Living Room, 1937,
watercolor over graphite, 242 x 319 mm, private collection
On the wall hangs Siesta, 1924/1931 (p. 152), below it in the center the blue toad (p. 22).
Mathilde Beckmann Sleeping in the Living Room, 1937,
watercolor and gouache over graphite, 242 x 319 mm, private collection
Mathilde Beckmann, Apartment and Studio, Rokin 85, Amsterdam
Max Beckmann in the Studio, 1937,
watercolor with India ink and gouache over graphite, 242 x 319 mm,
private collection
18
Max Beckmann on the Couch in the Bedroom
with the Curtain Closed, after 1940,
watercolor over graphite, 210 x 134 mm, private collection
Mathilde and Max Beckmann at the Round Table
in the Bedroom, after 1940,
watercolor over graphite, 212 x 138 mm, private collection.
On the dresser are the large mirror and other objects from Still Life
with Dressing Table, 1940 (p. 153).
On the wall hangs View of Menton with Pot of Lilies, 1940 (p. 141).
Max Beckmann’s Bedroom with the Curtain Open, 1937,
pen and India ink in black, watercolor and body color over graphite,
212 x 272 mm, private collection
On the dresser is the hand mirror from
Still Life with Dressing Table, 1940 (p. 153).
19
Fig. 14
Mathilde Beckmann, Max Beckmann in Bedroom, Rokin 85, Amsterdam, 1937,
watercolor over graphite, 242 x 319 mm, private collection
Fig. 15
Self-Portrait, the Draftsman in a Mirror (Manon), 1940,
pen and India ink, private collection
The elephant lamp is on the round table (p. 20), the shell on the secretary (p. 16),
various vessels on the cabinet with double doors, probably including the black handled
vessel (p. 14) and the red stirrup-spout vessel (p. 12).
On the table in the foreground is the mirror from
Still Life with Dressing Table, 1940 (p. 153), on the nightstand
in the background the elephant lamp (p. 20) .
Fig. 16
Foot of a lamp in the form of an elephant, probably 1920s,
ceramic, white glaze, 18.5 x 14 x 19.5 cm, private collection
Fig. 17
Still Life with Nightlamp, 1943,
private collection, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
20
hippopotamus Auguste21—but was especially attached to Butchy and Butchy to him. He portrayed his dog several times, including in another still life of 1942; there, in a kind of homage, he
is accompanied by a magnificent bouquet with red roses and lilies, as well as a clown-like doll
(fig. 19).
Joining the sleepless artist, the animated elephant, and the real dog was also a vigilant toad
(fig. 21): in Mathilde Beckmann’s drawing (p. 18) it stands in the living room on a small cabinet
with glass doors beneath Beckmann’s painting Siesta (p. 152). It was a cobalt-blue-glazed Chinese stoneware figure from the Qing dynasty,22 an incense burner and folksy object, used on an
altar or in the household. Whether Beckmann was aware of the meaning of the three-legged
toad, understanding the mythical animal, part of Taoist iconography and traditionally holding
a coin—or, as in this case, a pearl—in its mouth, as a symbol of wealth and prosperity, is not documented. Perhaps he associated the toad, which develops from a tadpole (in German: Kaulquappe)
and thus can also symbolize transformation and immortality, more with his wife, Mathilde: her
nickname Quappi came from her family name Kaulbach, and she had also requested this figure
as a gift from her parents’ collection.
In Still Life with Foxglove (fig. 20 / p. 109), painted in the early summer of 1943, Beckmann concentrates completely on the toad in a narrow vertical format, and depicts it so precisely in so many
details that he either had a very strong memory of it or had it before him while painting; the
distance from apartment to studio was not far. He showed the toad not from the front or the side,
but in a dynamic three-quarter view, depicted the line of the throat, the pearl, the nostrils, the
pupils, and the elaborate decorative ornament on the body, and accented the hoof-like feet as
well as other only lightly glazed parts of the figure with pink; he used white to intensify the line
of the wide mouth, gleaming most brightly in the light. In comparison to the somewhat ponderous real object, the painted toad seems to be in a state of vigilant tension, straining upward and
ready to leap.
Due to the war, from 1942 on, the Beckmanns could no longer travel to their beloved sea and so
they went on long bike rides from which they often brought back flowers: “Wonderful bike trip
Hilversum, Eykenstein. Brought a bouquet of foxglove back home.”23 Possibly the bouquet represented in the painting was composed of flowers they had picked themselves. Beckmann would
have liked the foxglove, with its strikingly shaped blossoms, as a pictorial subject, but he would
also surely have known about the poisonous plant’s beneficial effects upon heart failure: during
his time in Amsterdam he developed increasing heart troubles that weighed upon him heavily.
In Still Life with Foxglove, although the plant can be clearly identified, Beckmann gave its actually
rather straight form a strongly dynamic curvature—possibly in order to capture its dual nature
as beautiful and poisonous.
Beckmann frequently populated his images with animals, living and inanimate. He did not
always make them central; often he incorporated them so ingeniously into his compositions
that they first have to be discovered in order to be interpreted. In the spring of 1943 he painted—
Fig. 18
Night Still Life with Sunflowers, 1943,
private collection
Fig. 19
Still Life with Red Roses and Butchy,
1942, Merzbacher Kunststiftung
21
UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE
Karin Schick, Hubertus Gaßner, Hamburger Kunsthalle
Max Beckmann
The Still Lifes
Gebundenes Buch, Pappband, 200 Seiten, 23,0 x 28,0 cm
142 farbige Abbildungen, 42 s/w Abbildungen
ISBN: 978-3-7913-5408-8
Prestel
Erscheinungstermin: September 2014
In his still lifes, Max Beckmann juxtaposed vitality with death, permanence with ephemerality.
Featuring nearly eighty paintings and watercolors, this volume covers a half-century of the
artist's forays into the genre. The still life runs like a golden thread through every stage of his
creative life. Images of skulls, dying flowers and extinguished candles populate these masterful
works, which draw on the tradition of the Old Masters. At the same time, Beckmann's still lifes
are a celebration of color and form, materiality and textures. Skillfully Beckmann plays with
various levels of reality and with the inclusion of figures, landscapes or self-portraits into his still
lifes he creates fascinating overlaps with other genres. The beautifully reproduced works are
luminous on the page, allowing readers to appreciate Beckmann's use of iridescent color and
bold lines. Together they provide a unique perspective on Beckmann's development as an artist,
as well as a rich exploration into a lesser known aspect of the modern master's oeuvre.
With its lavish presentation, rich illustrations, and ribbon bookmark, this is a book that engages
all the senses.