拍品专文
Between 1937 and 1940 Beckmann could not decide whether to settle in Holland or France. After several trips to Amsterdam and Paris he and his wife Quappi decided to stay in Amsterdam where her sister, Hedda Schoonderbeek, was married to a Dutch organist. For the next ten years they rented an apartment in Amsterdam on two floors at Rokin 85 where Beckmann set up a studio for himself in an old tobacco storeroom.
The years in Holland were a period of great productivity in spite of the hardships of the war. Although in partial hiding, Beckmann maintained contact with Germany through his son, Peter. Beckmann's diaries are filled with notes about this renewed contact, since he had seen his young son from his first marriage on rare occasions, and a warm and lasting friendship now developed. Peter Beckmann was a medical officer in the German Air Force and was able to visit Amsterdam frequently, from where he smuggled his father's canvases into Germany. Through his son, the contact with Beckmann's pre-war dealer, Günther Franke, was maintained. In July 1946 Franke organised a large Beckmann exhibition in Munich with eighty-one pictures.
Frequently homesick during his self-imposed exile, Beckmann often allowed himself to escape into fantasies about ancient mythology, which is reflected in the subject matter of many of his pictures of this period. Stephan Lackner writes, "In his diaries he called himself 'pauvre Odysseus', and in letters he referred to his life as 'my Odyssey'". (Max Beckmann, New York, 1977, p. 148.)
Strong colours are the hallmark of Beckmann's style in this last creative period: "They fill their contours without interior variations ... The black outline - which has been called Beckmann's trademark by several art historians - now reveals his bodily force and temperament. When Beckmann's typical black contour first appeared about 1917, it served to modulate the apparent plasticity of his objects; it contracted to knife-sharp thinness at the lighted side and expanded softly into the shadows. In the mid-twenties it became the structural skeleton of his composition. In the thirties, it clearly divulged his very first stroke on each canvas ... Finally, the forties, the black line became his personal shorthand to capture fleeting apparitions". (op. cit.)
Beckmann often did not sign and date his paintings upon completion of the work but would add it at a later date when he either sold the picture or sent it for exhibition. There are approximately fifty works where the signed date differs about one year from the relevant entry in his worklist and diary. The date of the present picture, September-December 1942, was given by Erhard and Barbara Göpel based on both Beckmann's worklist and diary:
"Tagebuch
5. September 1942. 5 Entwürfe gemacht, zwei 'Abschied', 'gelbe Lilien', 'Negerbar' und 'Zwei Frauen'.
20. November 1942. Am 'Abschied' gearbeitet ....
15. Dezember 1942. Ganzen Tag zu Hause, im Halbdunkel 'Abschied' fertig gemacht". (op. cit., pp. 36, 37, 373 and 374)
The years in Holland were a period of great productivity in spite of the hardships of the war. Although in partial hiding, Beckmann maintained contact with Germany through his son, Peter. Beckmann's diaries are filled with notes about this renewed contact, since he had seen his young son from his first marriage on rare occasions, and a warm and lasting friendship now developed. Peter Beckmann was a medical officer in the German Air Force and was able to visit Amsterdam frequently, from where he smuggled his father's canvases into Germany. Through his son, the contact with Beckmann's pre-war dealer, Günther Franke, was maintained. In July 1946 Franke organised a large Beckmann exhibition in Munich with eighty-one pictures.
Frequently homesick during his self-imposed exile, Beckmann often allowed himself to escape into fantasies about ancient mythology, which is reflected in the subject matter of many of his pictures of this period. Stephan Lackner writes, "In his diaries he called himself 'pauvre Odysseus', and in letters he referred to his life as 'my Odyssey'". (Max Beckmann, New York, 1977, p. 148.)
Strong colours are the hallmark of Beckmann's style in this last creative period: "They fill their contours without interior variations ... The black outline - which has been called Beckmann's trademark by several art historians - now reveals his bodily force and temperament. When Beckmann's typical black contour first appeared about 1917, it served to modulate the apparent plasticity of his objects; it contracted to knife-sharp thinness at the lighted side and expanded softly into the shadows. In the mid-twenties it became the structural skeleton of his composition. In the thirties, it clearly divulged his very first stroke on each canvas ... Finally, the forties, the black line became his personal shorthand to capture fleeting apparitions". (op. cit.)
Beckmann often did not sign and date his paintings upon completion of the work but would add it at a later date when he either sold the picture or sent it for exhibition. There are approximately fifty works where the signed date differs about one year from the relevant entry in his worklist and diary. The date of the present picture, September-December 1942, was given by Erhard and Barbara Göpel based on both Beckmann's worklist and diary:
"Tagebuch
5. September 1942. 5 Entwürfe gemacht, zwei 'Abschied', 'gelbe Lilien', 'Negerbar' und 'Zwei Frauen'.
20. November 1942. Am 'Abschied' gearbeitet ....
15. Dezember 1942. Ganzen Tag zu Hause, im Halbdunkel 'Abschied' fertig gemacht". (op. cit., pp. 36, 37, 373 and 374)