| Maker(s): | Beckmann, Max
| | Culture: | American born Germany (1884 - 1950)
| | Title: | Gesellschaft (Society)
| | Date Made: | 1915
| | Type: | Print
| | Materials: | Drypoint printed in black on cream-colored Van Gelder paper
| | Place Made: | Germany
| | Measurements: | sheet: 12 3/8 in x 19 5/8 in; 31.4 cm x 49.8 cm; plate: 10 1/8 in x 12 1/2 in; 25.7 cm x 31.7 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | undated, signature in pencil at lower right: Max Beckmann
| | Accession Number: | SC 2012.1.1
| | Credit Line: | Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934, by her children, Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross and David R. Pokross Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 and David R. Pokross
| | Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
|
|
|
Description:
Grouping of people; social gathering one face looks directly at viewers, other faces engage with each other; face on side faces sideways; all bust portraits
Label Text:
Born in Leipzig in 1884, the son of a miller, Beckmann pursued his art career while disregarding the strong objections of his family. After his formative education at the Weimar Saxon-Grand Ducal Art School, Beckmann moved to Paris where he studied at the private Académie Colarossi. In 1904 he moved back to Berlin, where he gained recognition for his large-scale expressionistic paintings. With the outbreak of World War I, Beckmann was naively seduced by the “adventure” of war and volunteered for the army medical corps in 1914. In 1915, he left the service after a nervous collapse. His intense personal experiences during his time in the army hospitals affected him and his art dramatically.
The war also directly affected the mood and medium of the work that would follow. Moving away from the more painterly litho-graphic medium, Beckmann started working in drypoint, a method which, by comparison, allows for a more direct and harder, often singular line. This medium, like woodcut, which he would later use, seemed better suited to embody the harsh reality of everyday life in wartime Germany.
On the heels of his dehumanizing experiences during the war, and steeped in the philosophies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, Beckmann produced works of art that presented the isolation and alienation of man. In his series of Gesellschaft Bilder, he grouped people physically close together but spiritually without any sign of human connection. The group in question represents the family of Lili Braunbehrens and their friends the Battenburgs, all of whom helped Beckmann through this time of mental recovery. Looking back on this print in 1969, Lili remarked that Beckmann’s print showed her family from the inside and not how they presented themselves to society.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2012.1.1 |
