One from a portfolio of eleven lithographs (including front cover)
Not on view
Hell conjures the nightmare of social disintegration and violence that gripped Berlin after the end of World War I. Using fragmented city views, compressed interiors, and contorted bodies to convey chaos and claustrophobia, Beckmann composed each scene like a stage set. “If one comprehends . . . the entire war or even all of life only as a scene in the theater,” he wrote, “everything is much easier to bear.” The artist depicts himself in several prints, including The Way Home, where he encounters a disfigured war veteran on the street. Other images were based on recent incidents, including the January 1919 murder of the Communist leader Rosa Luxemburg, pictured in The Martyrdom.
2022
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New Gallery, New York; to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1954
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Max Beckmann
German, 1884–1950 218 works onlineMax Beckmann dreamed up a world of actors, cabaret singers, heroes, and thugs, whose dramas unfold on city streets, at masquerades and carnivals, and in candlelit chambers.
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