Man Seated at a Dining Table, Smoking
1899
Medium
graphite with pen and black ink and watercolor on wove paper
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Max Beckmann
Accession Number
1984.64.64.2
Art Historical Context
In the intimate drawing *Man Seated at a Table, Smoking* (1899), Maxmann captures a solitary figure in a moment of quiet contemplation. Created when the artist was just 15 years old this early work on wove paper combines graphite, pen and black ink, and watercolor—a mixed-media technique that showcases Beckmann's precocious command of line, shading, and subtle color. The everyday scene of a man at a dining table evokes the mundane rituals of bourgeois life in fin-de-siècle Germany, rendered with a naturalistic precision that hints at the artist's emerging talent. Beckmann, who would later bec...
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...