Editing Max Beckmann (section)

==Life==
Max Beckmann was born into a middle-class family in [[Leipzig]], [[Province of Saxony|Saxony]]. From his youth he pitted himself against the old masters. His traumatic experiences of [[World War I]], in which he volunteered as a medical orderly, coincided with a dramatic transformation of his style from academically correct depictions to a distortion of both figure and space, reflecting his altered vision of himself and humanity.<ref>Schulz-Hoffmann and Weiss 1984, p. 69.</ref>

He is known for the self-portraits painted throughout his life, their number and intensity rivaled only by those of [[Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn|Rembrandt]] and [[Picasso]]. Well-read in philosophy and literature, Beckmann also contemplated [[mysticism]] and [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]] in search of the "[[Self (philosophy)|Self]]".  As a true painter-thinker, he strove to find the hidden spiritual dimension in his subjects (Beckmann's 1948 ''Letters to a Woman Painter'' provides a statement of his approach to art).

Beckmann enjoyed great success and official honors during the [[Weimar Republic]].  In 1925, he was selected to teach a master class at the [[Städelschule]] Academy of Fine Art in [[Frankfurt]]. Some of his most famous students included Theo Garve, Leo Maillet and [[Marie-Louise von Motesiczky]].  In 1927, he received the Honorary Empire Prize for German Art and the Gold Medal of the City of [[Düsseldorf]]; the National Gallery in [[Berlin]] acquired his painting ''The Bark'' and, in 1928, purchased his ''Self-Portrait in Tuxedo''.<ref>Rainbird 2003, p. 272.</ref> By the early 1930s, a series of major exhibitions, including large retrospectives at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim (1928) and in [[Basel]] and Zurich (1930), together with numerous publications, showed the high esteem in which Beckmann was held.<ref name= MOMA>[http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A429&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1&section_id=T007232#skipToContent Max Beckmann] [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York.</ref>

{{Multiple image
| direction = vertical
| image1 = Max beckmann, autoritratto frontale con frontone di casa nello sfondo, 1918.jpg
| header = Beckmann Self-Portraits
| caption1 = ''Self-Portrait, House Gable in Background'', drypoint, 1918.
| caption2 = ''Self-Portrait with Horn'', 1938.
| image2 = Self-Portrait With Horn .jpg
| align = left
}}

His fortunes changed with the rise to power of [[Adolf Hitler]], whose dislike of [[Modern Art]] quickly led to its suppression by the state.  In 1933, the Nazi government called Beckmann a "cultural Bolshevik"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Beckmann.html |title=Beckmann |publisher=Spaightwood galleries | access-date=2012-03-12}}</ref> and dismissed him from his teaching position at the Art School in Frankfurt.<ref name="MOMA" /> In 1937, the government confiscated more than 500 of his works from German museums, putting several on display in the notorious [[Degenerate Art]] exhibition in [[Munich]].<ref>Rainbird 2003, p. 274.</ref> The day after Hitler's radio speech about degenerate art in 1937, Beckmann left Germany with his second wife, Quappi, for the Netherlands.<ref name="Chuckling Darkly at Disaster">[[Michael Kimmelman]] (June 27, 2003), [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/arts/art-review-chuckling-darkly-at-disaster.html "Chuckling Darkly at Disaster"], ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref>

For ten years, Beckmann lived in self-imposed exile in [[Amsterdam]],<ref name="MOMA" /> failing in his desperate attempts to obtain a visa for the United States. In 1944, the Germans attempted to draft him into the army, although the sixty-year-old artist had suffered a heart attack. The works completed in his Amsterdam studio were even more powerful and intense than the ones of his master years in Frankfurt. They included several large [[triptych]]s, which stand as a summation of Beckmann's art.

In 1947, Beckmann took a position at the [[St. Louis School of Fine Arts]] at [[Washington University in St. Louis|Washington University]].<ref>[https://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2016/max-beckmann metmuseum.org]</ref> During the last three years of his life, he taught at Washington University (alongside the [[German-American]] painter and printmaker [[Werner Drewes]]), and at the [[Brooklyn Museum]]. He came to St. Louis at the invitation of [[Perry T. Rathbone]], director of the [[Saint Louis Art Museum]].<ref>Stephen Kinzer (August 12, 2003), [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/arts/as-max-beckmann-gets-a-new-york-spotlight-st-louis-shares-in-the-glow.html "As Max Beckmann Gets a New York Spotlight, St. Louis Shares in the Glow"], ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> Rathbone arranged for Washington University to hire Beckmann as an art teacher, filling a vacancy left by [[Philip Guston]], who had taken a leave. The first Beckmann retrospective in the United States took place in 1948 at the City Art Museum, Saint Louis.<ref name="Max Beckmann">[http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Max%20Beckmann&page=1&f=Name&cr=1 Max Beckmann] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104135849/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Max |date=2012-11-04 }} Guggenheim Collection.</ref> In St. Louis, [[Morton D. May]] became his patron and, already an avid amateur photographer and painter, a student of the artist. May later donated much of his large collection of Beckmann's works to the St. Louis Art Museum. Beckmann also helped him learn to appreciate Oceanian and African art.<ref>Robert McDonald (February 7, 1987), [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-02-07-ca-1718-story.html Art Review: "German Masterpieces Dazzle At San Diego Museum Of Art"], ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref>

After stops in Denver and Chicago, he and Quappi took an apartment at 38 West 69th Street in [[Manhattan]].<ref name="Chuckling Darkly at Disaster" /> In 1949 he obtained a professorship at the [[Brooklyn Museum Art School]].<ref name="MOMA" />

Beckmann suffered from [[angina pectoris]] and died after Christmas 1950, struck down by a heart attack at the corner of 69th Street and [[Central Park West]] in New York City, not far from his apartment building.<ref>"Max Beckman, 66, Noted Artist, Dies". December&nbsp;28, 1950. ''New York Times''. "Max Beckmann&nbsp;... died yesterday of a heart attack near his home, 38&nbsp;West Sixty-ninth Street."</ref> As the artist's widow recalled, he was on his way to see one of his paintings at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]].<ref>Rainbird 2003, p. 283.</ref> Beckmann had a one-man show at the [[Venice Biennale]] of 1950, the year of his death.<ref name="MOMA" /> In his final year of 1950, he also painted the work ''[[Falling Man (painting)|Falling Man]]'' which is considered both a reflection on mortality and eerily predictive of the jumpers and other doomed people falling from the [[World Trade Center Towers]] during the [[September 11 attacks]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3246416|jstor=3246416|title=Art on the Eve of Destruction|last1=Klein|first1=Lee|journal=PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art|year=2003|volume=25|issue=3|pages=20–25|doi=10.1162/152028103322491656|s2cid=57563836|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://aeqai.com/main/2017/02/max-beckmann-in-new-york-metropolitan-museum-of-art-through-february-20-2017/|title = "Max Beckmann in New York," Metropolitan Museum of Art, through February 20, 2017 :: AEQAI}}</ref>