Max Beckmann

Dr Hans Melchers, Cologne (acquired from the artist in July 1943)

Hanns Meyer, Cologne (acquired from the above)

Dr Edeltraud Meistermann-Seeger, Cologne (acquired from the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1957
 

Cologne, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts in Kölner Privatbesitz, 1957, no. 10 (titled Möven)

Leipzig, Museum der Bildenden Künste & Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Max Beckmann. Gemälde 1905-1950, 1990-91, no. 74, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Hamburg, Kunsthalle; Bielefeld, Kunsthalle & Vienna, Kunstforum, Max Beckmann. Landschaft als Fremde, 1998-99, no. 62, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Osnabrück, Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, Zeit im Blick. Felix Nussbaum und die Moderne, 2004-05, no. 60, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Bern, Zentrum Paul Klee, Max Beckmann. Traum des Lebens, 2006, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Seestücke. Von Max Beckmann bis Gerhard Richter, 2007, no. 10, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Basel, Kunstmuseum, Max Beckmann - The Landscapes, 2011-12, no. 57, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Mannheim, Kunsthalle & Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Dix/Beckmann: Mythos Welt, 2013-14, no. 61, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

The artist's handlist, Amsterdam, 1942, listed as Möwen im Sturm

Peter Beckmann, Max Beckmann. Sammlung Günther Franke (exhibition catalogue), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1959, mentioned p. 8

Erhard & Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann, Katalog der Gemälde, Bern, 1976, vol. I, no. 598, catalogued p. 363; vol. II, no. 598, illustrated pl. 214

Max Beckmann. Menschen am Meer (exhibition catalogue), Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 2003-04, mentioned p. 157

Painted in April 1942, Möwen im Sturm was created during the most fruitful and inventive phase of Beckmann’s career, which occurred while he was living in exile in Amsterdam. Beckmann and his wife Quappi came to Amsterdam from Berlin on 19th July 1937, the same day that the infamous ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition opened at the Kunsthaus in Munich. Their relocation was one of political necessity, as the avant-garde Beckmann was already being singled out by authorities as a potentially subversive presence within the Reich. Before moving to the United States in 1947, the artist summed up his time in Holland in a letter to his friend Stephan Lackner: ‘May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, full to the brim with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger and always again work – in spite of everything’ (quoted in Max Beckmann: Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), Saint Louis Museum of Art, Saint Louis, 1984, p. 155).

Depicting a coastal landscape, one of the recurring motifs of his career, the present work is imbued with a symbolic meaning, the stormy sky and seagulls alluding to the tyranny of the Nazi regime. Two small, hardly noticeable boats washed up on the empty beach among the waves can be interpreted as symbols of Beckmann and Quappi’s exile. After the German occupation of Holland in May 1940 Beckmann’s everyday activities, including the possibility of travelling, were greatly restricted, and he spent most of his time in Amsterdam. On 24th June 1942, only a few months after he painted Möwen im Sturm, Beckmann wrote in his diary: ‘A bad trip to Zandvoort, even there everything is closed off with barbed wire etc. – One can no longer go to the sea and the beach’ (quoted in E. & B. Göpel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 26, translated from German). Beckmann was not able to travel to the coast until the liberation of Holland in May 1945 (fig. 1).

Hans Belting wrote of the present work: ‘in 1942, Beckmann painted Sea Gulls in Storm […], a work that absolutely cries out for a symbolic reading. The monumentality matches Sea with a Large Cloud [fig. 2] like another act from the same play. The storm is represented by the wind-tousled mewing seagulls keeping a precarious balance on the narrow railing that protrudes into the foreground. Here it appears they defy, in turns and for a few moments, the forces of nature raging on the abandoned beach. The contrast between the close-up view of the birds and the faraway view of the beach, water, and sky opens up a great spatial rift that Beckmann forces onto the flat canvas. The scurrying clouds are swallowed by the heavy dark sky. Only the pale twilight of the storm casts an absent brightness on the beach and the gulls’ feathers. The foreign presence of the birds in the storm, threatened and threatening at the same time, condenses into an unmistakable visual impression in which Beckmann, as he always reiterates, seeks an “individualization” of the motif’ (H. Belting in Max Beckmann – The Landscapes (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., pp. 20-21).

The narrow vertical shape of the canvas was frequently used by Beckmann in the 1940s, adding to the overall sense of tension and discomfort. While the more colourful seascapes of this period – painted from memory or from postcards – provided a form of escape for the artist, Möwen im Sturm is more truthful to the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and the harsh reality of the war years. The narrow format, although oriented horizontally, is also used in the companion painting to the present work, Möwen, sonnig (fig. 3), which Beckmann gave to his friend, the art historian Erhard Göpel. While the two compositions share a number of elements – the seagulls, the empty shore and the two boats on the sandy beach, Möwen im Sturm presents a much more striking composition, with the seagulls prominently painted in the foreground and the stormy grey sky carrying a highly symbolic meaning.

The first owner of the present work was the art historian Dr Hans Melchers (1902-1969), the co-founder of Bücherstube am Dom in Cologne. According to Beckmann’s diary entry, on 30th July 1943 Melchers was brought to his studio by Erhard Göpel, the art historian and friend of Beckmann’s who would later publish the catalogue raisonné of his work. On that occasion Melchers purchased the present work together with two other oils. Möwen im Sturm was later acquired by Melchers’ business partner Hanns Meyer (1903-1968). It was acquired by the present owner in 1955 and has remained in the same collection to the present day.