The exhibition “Max Beckmann in New York,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through February 20, 2017, puts 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 paintings, including self-portraits, Expressionist interiors, colorful portraits of women and performers, landscapes and triptychs. PROVOKR members can sample some of these iconic works here.
Though Beckmann (1884–1950) was at the pinnacle of his career in Germany in the 1920s, in 1937 the National Socialists denounced his work as “degenerate” and confiscated it from German museums. Beckmann immigrated to Holland, and in 1949 moved to New York City, which he described as “a prewar Berlin multiplied a hundredfold.” Life in Manhattan energized him and resulted in such powerful paintings as Falling Man (1950; see below). In late December 1950, Beckmann set out from his apartment on the Upper West Side to see his Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket (1950; see below) on view at the Metropolitan Museum as part of the exhibition “American Painting Today.” On the corner of 69th Street and Central Park West, however, the 66-year-old artist suffered a heart attack. He never made it to the Museum. The poignant circumstance of his death serves as the inspiration for this current exhibition.
