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Max Beckmann. Works from Museum and Private
Collections of Hamburg and Lubeck The first Russian exhibition devoted solely to Max Beckmann's work (1884-1950) coincides with the 50th anniversary of the brother city relationship between Hamburg and Saint Petersburg. The exposition held in the Peter Gallery (Halls Nr 255-257) has been prepared by the Hamburg Kunsthalle and includes about a hundred paintings, sculptures, and graphics from the Kunsthalle Collection and other museum and private collections from Hamburg and Lubeck. These are works created in various years, from the first attempts of the young artist to the graphic works created in the postwar period in America. In various periods of his life, Beckmann showed interest in realism, symbolism, impressionism and post-impressionism, expressionism, ‘new objectivity', and surrealism but never in his 50-year life did any of these opposite interests become all-determining for the artist. In his works, the artist responded to contemporary historically important events and artistic phenomena he interpreted into his own artistic language that became increasingly sophisticated with time. While responding to formal achievements in the newest arts, Beckmann transformed them so severely that any technique or citation he borrowed became natural and essential - and truly one belonging to Beckmann's. Any exhibition of Beckmann's works in Germany and elsewhere abroad is fated to be successful but his works can hardly be placed alongside a number of well-known "icons" of the last century. At the Hermitage exhibition, Max Beckmann's paintings are represented by his famous self-portrait created in Florence in 1907 and a number of portraits and landscapes painted in the 1920s-1940s. In portrait paintings, Beckmann would mainly restrict himself to portraits of his intimate friends and to self-portraits. The portrait of Elisabeth Götz, like most female portraits painted by Beckmann in those years, is not only free of grotesque or expressive deformation but, on the contrary, is full of harmony and lyricism. Many of Beckmann's paintings and graphics were devoted to cityscapes. He painted cityscapes from 1910s until World War II. In the postwar period, the artist moved to Frankfurt and his new paintings of the city on the Main appear to be nearly idyllic. The painter's legacy includes many sea pieces. For Beckmann, a seascape is not merely an interesting view but often the most sensitive tool to express his mood - "the soulscape". A prominent place in the exposition is held by Beckmann's graphics from Hamburg collector Klaus-Bernt Hegewisch's collection, consisting of some drawings created in the 1910s and printings that were mostly made between 1914 and 1924. Not many people had the courage to collect Beckmann's work while he was alive. It is hard to conceive that someone could take arts so seriously during that difficult period, however Klaus-Bernt Hegewisch was such a person. Once the young man purchased a Beckmann print and the purchase gave birth to one of the best private collections of the artist's graphics. Today, Klaus-Bernt Hegewisch's collection includes some of Beckmann's drawings (painted in 1910s) and his prints (made mostly between 1914 and 1924). Thus, the exhibition represents a reasonably complete canvas of the artist's works made at the epoch of breaking events - World War I, revolution-driven crisis, and rise of the Weimar Republic. It is in those years that Beckmann's stylistics underwent dramatic changes and the individual artistic language formed. The exposition includes pieces from Beckmann's series Faces, Hell, and Fair. The Hell became Beckmann's most famous cycle of graphics. The series was published as a separate photolithographic album in a thousand copies - a huge issue during that time. The State Hermitage Publishing House has prepared an illustrated catalogue with text written by Mikhail Dedinkin, the exhibition curator and the deputy head of the Western European Arts Department of the State Hermitage Museum. |
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