On view
William R. Elfers Gallery
The Bowery,
1950
One of the foremost artists of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), Beckmann fled Germany in 1937 after the Nazi regime classified him as a “degenerate” artist and removed hundreds of his works from German museums. He lived in self-imposed exile, first in Amsterdam and then, after 1947, in the United States, where he taught in Saint Louis and Brooklyn.
The Bowery is one of Beckmann’s final works. It reflects his ongoing fascination with urban life and particularly with the Bowery, a densely populated district in lower Manhattan that he frequently explored and described in his diary as a place of “sorrow and misery.” The tightly compressed composition lends the scene an air of claustrophobia, suggesting the crowded streets of New York. Emphatic black outlines and blocks of bold color reminiscent of a stained-glass window delineate the exaggerated features of a woman and the leering men surrounding her.
More Context
Handbook Entry
Associated with German Expressionism, Max Beckmann was one of the foremost artists of the Weimar Republic, but his unflinching depictions of society and his commitment to modernism provoked Nazi ideologues, who confiscated many of his works. Subsequently, Beckmann spent the years after 1937 living in exile. In 1947, he moved to the United States. <em>The Bowery</em> is one of the artist’s last works, painted the year he died, and it reflects his ongoing fascination with the seedy underbelly of urban life, particularly in that eponymous New York neighborhood. Here, emphatic black outlines and blocks of bold color, reminiscent of a stained-glass window, delineate the face of a woman, possibly a prostitute. She is surrounded by a group of leering men whose grotesque features complement her own. The tightly compressed composition lends the painting an air of claustrophobia, suggesting capture or, alternately, the crowded streets of New York.
Information
1950
- "Acquisitions 1965 and 1966," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 26, no. 1 (1967): p. 2, 19-32., p. 25
- Max Beckmann in America, (New York: Catherine Viviano Gallery, 1969). , illustrated
- Erhard Göpel and Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann: Katalog der Gemälde, (Bern: Kornfeld & Cie., 1976). , no. 815
- Max Beckmann: Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, 19. April bis 24. Juni 1984, (Köln: Stadt Köln, 1984). , no. 78 (illus.)
- Joseph H. Driscoll III, Works by Max Beckmann: [exhibition] 21 October 1984-13 January 1985, (Roslyn Harbor, NY: The Museum, 1984). , pl. no. 29
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 141 (illus.)
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Jutta Schütt, ed., Beckmann & America (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz; Frankfurt am Main: Städel Museum, 2011).
, p. 202; p. 203 (illus.); cat. no. 86 - Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), pg. 308
