Beckmann Sketchbook 34
1923-1940s
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View on museum website →Medium
sketchbook with 29 sketches in graphite, 1 in blue ball-point pen, 1 in both, 74 blank pages, and 4 pages of artist's notations.
Dimensions
book: 17 x 11.8 x 5 cm (6 11/16 x 4 5/8 x 1 15/16 in.)
Classification
Volume
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Max Beckmann
Accession Number
1984.64.41.1-31
Art Historical Context
Max Beckmann's *Sketchbook 34* a rare, intimate glimpse into the creative mind of one of the 20th century's most compelling Expressionist artists. Spanning from 1923 through the 1940s, this period encompassed Beckmann's life amid the turmoil of post-World War I Germany, the rise of Naz—which forced his exile in 1937 his later years in Amsterdam and the United States. As a key figure in German Expressionism, Beckmann was renowned for his bold, symbolic triptychs and distorted figures conveying inner turmoil; this sketchbook captures the raw, preparatory essence of that vision in a compact volum...
About the Artist
Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (1884-1950) stands as one of the most significant German painters of the twentieth century, a complex artist who bridged Expressionism and the New Objectivity while forging a deeply personal visual language. Born in Leipzig into a middle-class family, Beckmann's artistic journey spanned from academic classicism through the traumatic crucible of World War I to a mature s...