Opening October 19, 2016, the exhibition Max Beckmann in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will put a spotlight on the artist's special connection with New York City. It will feature 14 paintings that Beckmann created while living in New York from 1949 to 1950, as well as 25 works, dating from 1920 to 1948, from New York collections. The exhibition assembles several groups of iconic works, including self-portraits; mythical, expressionist interiors; robust, colorful portraits of women and performers; landscapes; and triptychs.
The exhibition is made possible by The Isaacson-Draper Foundation. It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. In late December 1950, Beckmann set out from his apartment on the Upper West Side of New York to see his Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket (1950), which was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition American Painting Today. However, on the corner of 69th Street and Central Park West, the 66-year-old artist suffered a fatal heart attack and never made it to the Museum. The poignant circumstance of the artist's death served as the inspiration for the exhibition. During the late 1920s, Max Beckmann (1884-1950) was at the pinnacle of his career in Germany-his work was presented by prestigious art dealers; he taught at the Städel Art School in Frankfurt and moved in a circle of influential writers, critics, publishers, and collectors. After the National Socialists denounced his work as "degenerate" and confiscated it from German museums in 1937, Beckmann left the country and immigrated to Holland, where he remained for 10 years. After the war, and after rejecting offers to teach in Berlin and Munich, Beckmann accepted a temporary teaching position in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1947. He made his move to America permanent in 1948, seeing his emigration as marking the end of his exile. In early September 1949 he moved to New York City, which he described as "a prewar Berlin multiplied a hundredfold," and began teaching at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He and his wife Mathilde "Quappi" Beckmann first lived at 234 East 19th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, moving in May 1950 to 38 West 69th Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. Life in Manhattan energized him and resulted in such powerful pictures as Falling Man (1950) and The Town (City Night)(1950).Videos