Beckman studied at the Weimar Academy (1900-1903) and then worked in Berlin.
He painted his first self-portrait at the age 15. His early paintings were influenced by impressionism, and he also produced works with biblical and mythological themes, reflecting his admiration of medieval art.
In 1906, Beckman painted his Great Scene of Death and Small Scene of Death, in which he tried to express and come to terms with his own grief at his mother’s painful death.
At the start of World War 1 (1914) he served as a medical orderly but was discharged following a nervous breakdown. These experiences of war profoundly influenced his later work.
In 1919, in the aftermath of the war, Beckman visited Berlin. This was in March, at the height of the street fighting between revolutionaries and Freikops.
He responded to the chaos and violence in German’s cities with two of his most significant works of the period: Die Nacht (The Night) and the portfolio of large lithographs titles Die Holle (Hell).
The beginning is the eight of nine triptychs Beckman producing during the last two decades of his life between 1932 and 1950.
Beckman retained his life an instinctive fell to the art of the past, gravitating towards images and epochs in which he saw powerful and simple expression.
He taught in Frankfurt until 1933, when he was dismissed by the Nazi regime as a ‘degenerate artist’
He went first to Berlin, then to Paris and Amsterdam, and finally (in 1947) to the United States, where he taught a produced work that was lighter and less harsh. In the last two years of his life Beckman received academic honors and prizes in the United States and at the Venice Biennale.
German painter and graphic artist Max Beckman
