Max Beckmann im Dialog

... with Cecily Brown, Ella Kruglyanskaya and Dana Schutz

The three artists live in the USA or were born there. They have admired the work of Max Beckmann since the beginning of their work. Outside of Germany, he was seen as the "most German of all artists". His painting "Valkyrie" (left) was one of the first he painted after his arrival in the United States in 1947. Cecily Brown provided the inspiration for the exhibition and publication, in which numerous works by Beckmann from private and museum collections enter into dialogue with current works by the three painters of the granddaughter generation. In particular, his "Letters to a Painter" - a speech given to female students at Stephens College in Columbia shortly after his arrival in the USA - receive metaphorical responses. In Cecily Brown's pictures, which she painted especially for this occasion, the influence is primarily atmospheric - Max Beckmann's contours and colour tones are unmistakable in them. Ella Kruglyanskaya shows portraits of women whose vitality almost bursts the canvas and quite obviously caricatures the master's bar and coffee house staff. Dana Schutz combines Beckmann's recurring motifs in large-format works, stacking up the impressions and thus coming very close to his world. In this way, all three artists create autonomous works that bear witness to the timelessness of the "most German of all artists".

Exhibition:
CFA Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 8/6 - 13/7/2019