Max Beckmann
Large Self-Portrait
1919
Etching on wove paper 23.7 x 19.7 cm (43 x 31 cm) Signed. - Titled and dated by an unknown hand lower left. One of 50 proofs on this paper. Edited by I.B. Neumann, Berlin 1920. - Slightly browned within the mat opening and with a very minor stain to the lower right corner. - A print rich in contrast, partly velvety in appearance.
Self-portraits play an important role in Max Beckmann's oeuvre. The first painted self-portrait was created as early as 1897. Since 1901 Beckmann created a series of etchings in different psychologising variants.The present self-portrait, which depicts the artist smoking and brooding with wide-open eyes, is extremely evocative: the image fills the entire sheet and the etched lines are forcefull and sensitive at the same time. Over the years the artist repeatedly dealt with his own physiognomy, as though in order to explore his own nature and his emotional states. Beckmann made particularly intense use of the medium of printmaking in the 1910s and 1920s.
Catalogue Raisonné
Hofmaier 153.B
Certificate
We would like to thank Mayen Beckmann, Cologne, for her kind confirmatory information as of 26 Sept. 2014.
Provenance
Private collection, South Germany