The Argonauts
1949/1950
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View on museum website →Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall (without frames): 205.74 × 292.1 cm (81 × 115 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Max Beckmann
Accession Number
1975.96.1.a-c
Art Historical Context
Max Beckmann’s *The Argonauts* (1949–1950) stands as one of the artist’s final and most ambitious works, completed in the United States after he fled Nazi Germany. Painted in oil on a monumental canvas more than eight feet wide, the composition draws on the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. Beckmann transforms this timeless adventure into a richly symbolic meditation on exile, struggle, and the search for meaning in the aftermath of World War II. A leading figure of twentieth-century German Expressionism, Beckmann employed bold colors, compressed spac...
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...