Max Beckmann was a famous German artist associated with the Expressionists and the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) art movements. He is best known for his gritty, sometimes shocking depictions of the human condition. Famous Max Beckmann artworks include “The Night (Die Nacht)”, “Self-Portrait in Tuxedo”, “Departure”, “The Iron Bridge (View of Frankfurt)”, “The Artist and his Wife”, “Carnival”, “Artists with Vegetable”, “Self-Portrait with Red Scarf”, “Acrobats” and “The Synagogue in Frankfurt am Main”.
Mini biography: Born Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann on the 12th of February, 1884 in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany. His mother was Antoine and his father Carl Beckmann was a grain merchant. Beckmann married the artist and opera singer Minna Tube in 1906 and they divorced in 1925. He married his second wife singer Mathilde Q. in 1925. The artist died on the 27th of December, 1950 in New York City, New York, United States of America at the age of 66. Beckmann is buried at the Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium, Middle Village, Queens County, New York, USA.
List of Famous Max Beckmann Art Quotes
To transform three into two dimensions is for me an experience full of magic in which I glimpse for a moment that fourth dimension which my whole being is seeking. Max Beckmann
I hardly need to abstract things, for each object is unreal enough already, so unreal that I can only make it real by means of painting. Max Beckmann
My heart beats more for a raw, average vulgar art, which doesn’t live between sleepy fairy-tale moods and poetry but rather concedes a direct entrance to the fearful, commonplace, splendid and the average grotesque banality in life. Max Beckmann
The laws of art are eternal and don’t change at all, as the moral laws don’t change in human beings. Max Beckmann
Painting is a very difficult thing. It absorbs the whole man, body and soul – thus I have passed blindly many things which belong to the real and political life. I assume, though, that there are two worlds: the world of spiritual life and the world of political reality. Both are manifestations of life which may sometimes coincide but are very different in principle. I must leave it to you to decide which is the more important. Max Beckmann
What is important to me in my work is the identity that is hidden behind so-called reality. I search for a bridge from the given present to the invisible. Max Beckmann
Oh I wish that I could paint again. Paint is an instrument without which I cannot survive for any length of time. Whenever I even think of gray, green and white, I am overcome with quivers of lust. Then I wish that this war would end and that I might paint again. Max Beckmann
Just as I follow fear, disease, lust, love, and hate to their utmost limits, well, now I am trying war. It is all life, wonderfully various and rich in inspiration. Max Beckmann
Space and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained. Max Beckmann
Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement.. for transfiguration, not for the sake of play. Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann Self Portrait Painting
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Related or similar popular artists include: Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Baselitz, and other Famous German Artists.
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