Max Beckmann

I.B. Neumann, New York & Günther Franke, Munich (on consignment from the artist by 1927 and until at least 1934)
Frau Bergdolt, Munich
Galerie Gerd Rosen, Berlin (acquired by 1945)
Private Collection (acquired by 1960. Sold: Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 4th June 1993, lot 30)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, New Art Circle I.B. Neumann, Max Beckmann, 1927, no. 20, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, S.P.R. Galleries, Modern German Art, 1930
Berlin, Galerie Alfred Flechtheim Berlin, Max Beckmann, 1932, no. 15

Artist's Handlist, 1926, listed as Stilleben mit violetten Dahlien
I. B. Neumann (ed.), 'Max Beckmann' in Art Lover, New York, 1927
'Kunstausstellungen Berlin' in Der Kunstwanderer, 1932, p. 200
Benno Reifenberg, Max Beckmann, Munich, 1949, no. 227 (titled Stilleben mit Gitarre)
Doris Schmidt, Briefe an Günther Franke, Cologne, 1970, mentioned p. 44 (titled Stillleben mit Gitarre)
Erhard Göpel & Barbara Göpel (ed.), Max Beckmann Katalog der Gemälde, Bern, 1976, vol. I, no. 258, catalogued p. 188; vol. II, illustrated pl. 92
Rheinhold Spieler, Max Beckmann. Der Weg zum Mythos, Cologne, 1994, illustrated in colour p. 59
Max Beckmann: A Dream of Life (exhibition catalogue), Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, 2006, mentioned p. 62 (titled Stillleben mit Gitarre)

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. Apart from some very minor frame wear to all four extreme edges, this work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the browns are slightly richer in the original.
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Stillleben mit violetten Dahlien is an oustanding example of the extraordinary paintings Beckmann produced while he was in Frankfurt during the 1920s. On the 3rd of February 1934 the artist wrote to his dealer, Günther Franke, to discuss the paintings that had been consigned to his gallery: 'Do exhibit the following from time to time: Portrait Frau B. with Cat, The Lodge, Winter Landscape, Small Mountain Landscape, The Fitting, Still Life with Guitar [the present work], Still Life with Mexican Vase and the watercolour Tree Fellers. No need for parties. Time will come and justice will befall me' (quoted in Doris Schmidt, op. cit., p. 44). This statement of self-determination by Beckmann was delivered at a time of great unrest in his life and career. The group of works he listed are reminders of the more settled, joyful period in which he created Stillleben mit violetten Dahlien. The expressive manner in which Beckmann approached his art in the 1920s is manifest in the present work with its palette of dramatic purples, pinks and greens which he has used to depict a masterfully composed still-life redolent with his personal mythological signifiers.

In Stillleben mit violetten Dahlien Beckmann has composed the clutter of his studio in a manner that suggests a heightened awareness of the objects' relationships with each other. Franz Roh discerned the exceptional qualities of Beckmann's 1920s paintings. He recognised the revolutionary tendency with which the artist was reorganising the state of confusion in the wake of war, abandoning the utopian visions of the Expressionists in favour of a more tangible and meaningful reality. 'The new objective painting was of necessity all the more readily interpreted as a sign of this revolution in thought and feeling, because abstractness was considered the artistic manifestation of the Expressionist attitude of mind' (F. Roh in Max Beckmann (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1964, pp. 37-38). Beckmann's acute response to emotional crises had always been to compose imagery of startling density and insight: 'Oh, this infinite space! We must constantly fill up the foreground with junk so that we do not have to look in its frightening depth. What would we poor people do, if we would not always come up with some idea like country, love, art, and religion with which we can again and again cover up that dark black whole' (quoted in ibid., p. 23).

In 1925, one year before the present work was painted, Beckmann had been appointed professor at the Städelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt and married the young violinist Mathilde von Kaulbach, known as Quappi, who was the daughter of a celebrated portraitist from Munich. The importance of music in the couple's life was paramount, as it had been with his first spouse, Minna Beckmann-Tube, who was an opera-singer. Reinhold Speiler discusses the position of music within the artist's work: 'Beckmann gave musical instruments an important formal role, and integrated them into his system of iconographical requisites, which were in each instance closely linked with specific realms of meaning. Above all, there were two formal elements which Beckmann continually extracted from various types of instruments are striking: on the one hand, there are the markedly round forms with a deep funnel-shaped gorge, which he associated predominantly with brass instruments... and on the other, there are curved string instruments with long necks also ending in rounded forms, but remains flat and characterised by a linear articulation... Basically a masculine-phallic symbolism with respect to the protruding brass instruments and the femininely-charged meaning of the curving, bellied string instruments, such as violins or mandolins can be confirmed' (R. Spieler, op. cit., pp. 58-59).

The identification of instruments as distinctly gendered is especially apparent in works painted during the intervening years of Beckmann's marriage to Quappi in 1925 and the disjuncture caused by the rise of National Socialism (figs. 1 & 2). With reference to the present work Spieler states: 'Up until 1932, almost without exception, only two types of musical instruments appear: on the one hand, strings such as violins or cellos, and on the other, the saxophone. Stringed instruments appear to be closely connected with Quappi as a person, in two flower still-lifes the violin practically functions as a stand-in for her... Beckmann on the contrary associates himself with the saxophone... Connected with this imagery is the contemporary salon-world of stylish bars, along with all their associations with the amusement and sexual enticement omnipresent during the 'Golden Twenties'' (R. Spieler, ibid., p. 62). The iconographic significance of the instrument in Stillleben mit violetten Dahlien is further enhanced by the sensuously depicted flowers and ripe fruit, marking it out as one of Beckmann's finest allegorical still-lifes from his Frankfurt period.


Fig. 1, Max Beckmann, Grosses Stillleben mit Musikinstrumenten, 1926, oil on canvas, Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Fig. 2, Max Beckmann, Grosses Stillleben mit Fernrohr, 1927, oil on canvas, Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich