Max Beckmann, Portrait of Mink with Violet Shawl – New Objectivity
The painting depicts Minna, also known as Mink, seated in a chair, wearing a black dress, with a violet shawl covering her shoulders and arms, her hands folded, while she looks quietly to her left. The background appears in a bluish colour.
The portrait was executed during the painter’s twenties, when he was openly critical of the more modern contemporary art tendencies, such as expressionism, fauvism and cubism. Beckmann still follows German impressionism, reflecting the influence of Max Liebermann, in particular in his somber tonalities, but without his brushwork, or the brilliance of Lovis Corinth. His style is more conservative and still close to realism.
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s, he was associated with the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism. Even when dealing with light subject matter like circus performers, Beckmann often had an undercurrent of moodiness or unease in his works. By the 1930s, his work became more explicit in its horrifying imagery and distorted forms with combination of brutal realism and social criticism, coinciding with the rise of nazism in Germany
Available as a fine art print and as a stretched canvas panel (heavy fine art canvas stretched over 1.5 inch deep edge solid wood frame)
All prints are made using archival art stocks and UV pigment inks to give up to 200 years life. Prints are sold unframed and unmounted.