Vintage Diminutive Mid 20th Century Max Beckmann Expressionist Lithographs - Set of 12

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This set of twelve (12) diminutive Expressionist lithographs (offset) by the famous and well listed German Expressionist Max Carl Friedrich … Read more This set of twelve (12) diminutive Expressionist lithographs (offset) by the famous and well listed German Expressionist Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (Leipzig, Germany February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) depict people and scenes of the times in Germany. They were printed in Munich, Germany in 1954. Each lithograph has another image or text on the reverse (see photos). Dimensions; Apprx. 4.5" x 7".

Beckmann 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.

Max 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. The artist himself is often part of the action, usually costumed, but identifiable by his enormous head and scowling face. At a time when many of his German contemporaries were experimenting with abstraction, Beckmann resolutely pursued the possibilities of figuration and narrative, peppering his paintings with fragments of myths, bible stories, and opaque allegories—often interspersed with scenes and figures from his life.

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