Beckmann

Max Beckmann created his work in a world marked by crises and upheavals, transforming his experiences of this into a visual language that remains fascinating to this day. The most intimate part of his oeuvre are his drawings: like a diary, they document his artistic development, serving as a medium for observation and for creating imagery. The Städel Museum is now putting these works centre stage and presenting some eighty pieces from all phases of his career—from little-known drawings to outstanding major works. They offer a direct and intense insight into the life and work of Max Beckmann (1884–1950), one of the most important artists of the modern era.

The Städel Museum holds one of the most outstanding Beckmann collections in the world and has been dedicated to collecting, researching and communicating his work for more than a century. In 2021, the museum received a remarkable addition to its holdings in the form of important permanent loans from the collection of Karin and Rüdiger Volhard. This, together with the publication of the three-volume catalogue raisonné of Max Beckmann’s black-and-white drawings by Hirmer Verlag—with which Hedda Finke and Stephan von Wiese have closed one of the last major gaps in research on Beckmann’s drawings—is the occasion for this retrospective exhibition.

The exhibition is based on drawings from the Städel Museum’s own collection, complemented by loans from renowned international museums and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Selected paintings and prints also provide insights into Beckmann’s working process and the interplay of different media.