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LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
MAX BECKMANN
1884 Leipzig – New York 1950
Seated Nude, 1928
Black chalk on laid paper with watermark: MBM.
Signed, inscribed and dated lower right: Beckmann F 28.
101.0 cm x 70.5 cm
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Berlin – Private collection, Germany
EXHIBITIONS: Der Zeichner und Graphiker Max Beckmann, Kunstverein in Hamburg, 1979; and Kunsthalle
Darmstadt, 1980 - Werke aus der Sammlung Rheingarten und anderen Privatsammlungen, Galerie Thomas, Munich
1988 - Max Beckmann, Gemälde, Papierarbeiten, Graphiken, Galerie Thomas, Munich 2013
LITERATURE: Der Zeichner und Graphiker Max Beckmann, Kunstverein in Hamburg and Kunsthalle
Darmstadt 1979, no. 129, p. 122 (as Sitzende), full-page repr. - Stadtnächte, Der Zeichner und Grafiker Max
Beckmann, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Berlin 1980, nn., p. 126 (as Sitzende), full-page repr.
Representations of the female nude play a key role in Max Beckmann’s oeuvre. He was to return to the
nude in his drawings, prints and paintings throughout his career. He very rarely set out to portray an
individual model; rather, he depicted the female nude as a depersonalized pictorial construct, memorializing the sensual opulence of the female body in all its physicality.
The present drawing depicting a half-nude, seated female figure is a remarkable example of the
incisive power of Beckmann’s line. This incisiveness is on a par with the expressive strength of his
paintings. His delineation of form in this drawing is confident and economical. Line is clearly and
firmly articulated and tonal contrast is used sparingly. Controlled shading in a delicate mesh of
parallel strokes suggests volume. The figure is centred on the sheet, filling its entire format. Isolated
diagonals are used to root the figure in space. The model is depicted frontally, legs crossed, her left
hand grasping the calf of her right, stocking-clad leg and her right hand cupping the edge of the
stocking. Beckmann had already depicted a somewhat similar pose in a drypoint of 1923 titled Toilette
(Before the Mirror). 1 In both the drypoint and the present drawing – as in many of Beckmann’s depictions of half-nudes – the model is shown in a demi-basque that leaves her shoulders and breasts
naked. But the similarity ends there. The two figures have little in common both in terms of physical
appearance and in their attention to what they are doing. In the drypoint the model has long hair.
Her facial features are clear and although her eyes are lowered her expression is focused as she fixes
the garter strap on her stocking. In the drawing, the model’s pose is oddly static and her actions
ambiguous and unresolved. Her downward gaze and the foreshortening of her head exclude any
suggestion of portraiture or expression of individuality. This gives the figure a timeless human
quality.
1
James Hofmaier, Max Beckmann. Catalogue Raisonné of his Prints, 2 vols., Bern 1990, no. 286.
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LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
The drypoint, with its focus on a morning ritual, has a distinctly narrative, almost anecdotal quality,
while the drawing depicts a figure conveying something of the inscrutability of antique statuary.
A similar economy of line is to be found in other Beckmann drawings of the period. One example is a
drawing executed in the same year titled Rowers. 2 The parallels with Picasso – Beckmann saw him as a
constant rival but a source of constant artistic stimulus – are unmistakable. Both in terms of subject
and handling, Beckmann’s large-format drawing owes much to Picasso’s pastel of 1920 titled Seated
Dancer (Zervos IV/97). The pastel is a portrait of Picasso’s wife, the Russian ballet dancer Olga
Khokhlova. Beckmann, however, leaves the identity of the sitter completely unclear. But his debt to
Picasso is nevertheless evident, particularly in his use of foreshortening and the schematic handling of
the facial features of his model. These are characteristics of Picasso’s neoclassical phase. Beckmann’s
focus of interest lies not in characterization but in conveying the plasticity and the fullness of a
voluptuous female body.
This drawing was executed three years after Beckmann’s marriage to his second wife, Mathilde
Kaulbach (nicknamed ‘Quappi’) in Frankfurt in 1925. These years were extraordinarily productive
and successful: in 1928 he was awarded both the gold medal of the city of Düsseldorf for his painting
titled Large Still-Life with Telescope 3 (1927) and the Reichsehrenpreis Deutscher Kunst. The year 1928 also
saw the staging of a major retrospective of his work at the Kunsthalle Mannheim. Titled ‘Max
Beckmann. Das gesammelte Werk’, it was curated by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub. In the preface to the
catalogue Beckmann lays out his basic artistic principles, placing particular emphasis on the representation of three-dimensional volume.
The years 1925 to 1928 were years of particularly intense artistic activity. They were marked by works
of immense vigour and vitality, alive with large, lucidly defined forms and bold figures of striking
plasticity. A painting titled Female Nude with a Dog [fig. 1] 4 depicting his twenty-three-year-old wife is a
good example of this. Quappi’s face is partly hidden but her identity is clear. Not so in the present
drawing. Here, as in many of Beckmann’s works on mythological themes – the triptychs, for
example – he addresses femaleness, and such qualities as sensuousness and erotic appeal. And
occasionally, too, he depicts the potential hazards women can represent to men. The theme of the
battle of the sexes, for example, appears in a chalk drawing titled Night 5 executed at about the same
time as the present sheet. Physical similarities between the seated figure in the present drawing and
the reclining figure in Night would seem to suggest that the same model sat for both drawings. There
are certain similarities, too, with the single figure depicted in an important painting executed in 1928
titled Gypsy Woman (Half-Nude with Mirror). 6 She is shown frontally, combing her hair with an expansive
gesture of her uplifted right arm. It is possible that the same woman sat as model for this painting.
However Beckmann provides no clues as to her identity.
2
Chalk drawing, 554 x 727 mm. Deutsche Bank Collection.
Erhard Göpel and Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann. Katalog der Gemälde, 2 vols., Bern 1976, no. 275. Pinakothek der Moderne,
Munich.
4
Göpel (op. cit.), no. 268. Museum Wiesbaden.
5
Max Beckmann. Aquarelle und Zeichnungen 1903 bis 1950, exhib. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld; Kunsthalle Tübingen; and Städtische
Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main, 1977-8, no. 123. Private collection.
6
Göpel (op. cit.), no. 289. Hamburger Kunsthalle.
3
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
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LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
At this stage of his career Beckmann’s prints are also marked by linear clarity and emphasis on bold
figure types. He had already begun to employ much the same ductus in a suite of six drypoints titled
Ebbi, published in 1923. 7 Here, however, forms are defined with greater angularity and their sharpness is
more pronounced. The two drypoints titled Portrait of Georg Swarzenski 8 and Nude and Cat on the Beach [fig.
2] 9 were executed in the same year as the present drawing and are stylistically very closely related to
it. The incisive linearity and sparing use of tonal contrast and modelling in the present drawing,
coupled with formal balance and compositional finish, might possibly be interpreted as an indication
that Beckmann intended to reproduce the image in the medium of drypoint. But this did not
happen.
Christiane Zeiller
Fig. 1: Female Nude with a Dog, 1927,
oil on canvas, 67 x 47 cm.
Museum Wiesbaden
Fig. 2: Nude and Cat on the Beach, 1928,
drypoint, 249 x 120 mm.
7
Hofmaier (op. cit.), nos. 306-8.
Hofmaier (op. cit.), no. 313.
9
Hofmaier (op. cit.), no. 316.
8
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
[email protected] ∙ WWW.LECLAIRE-KUNST.DE
HYPOVEREINSBANK HAMBURG ∙ BLZ: 200 300 00 ∙ KTO: 222 5464
SWIFT (BIC): HYVEDEMM300 ∙ IBAN: DE88 2003 0000 0002 2254 64
STEUERNUMMER 42/040/02717 ∙ UST.-ID.-NR.: DE 118 141 308