Max Beckmann

Happy Birthday Max Beckmann!! Born in East Germany in 1884, Beckmann studied art at Weimar School of Art. He was a painter, printmaker, draftsman, and sculptor. He toured Europe, especially impressed with Post-Impressionists, Cezanne and Van Gogh. Beckmann became an Expressionist after falling into a depression following World War I, where he served as a medical corpsman. Immediately following the war, his paintings were especially gruesome, gradually developing a more dreamlike almost surreal quality. Beckmann and his wife fled Germany in 1939 to Amsterdam, where he lived and worked for a decade, finally moving to the US, living here for 3 years before his death in 1950. The painting below is titled Family Group.