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| Max Beckmann, Self-Portrait, 1936 (model), 1968 (cast). LACMA |
Max Beckmann's bronze Self-Portrait, purchased by LACMA's Collectors Committee last month, is now on view in the modern art galleries. Beckmann's frontal study of angst makes a match of sorts with Käthe Kollwitz's bronze self-portrait, shown on the same wall.
The art of the German Expressionists remains uncomfortably relevant. Next to the Kollwitz is George Grosz's portrait of Dr. Felix J. Weil, one of the Jewish intellectuals who fled the Third Reich for the safe haven known as "Weimar on the Pacific"—Pacific Palisades. Today Pacific Palisades is an apocalyptic landscape of climate change, and the threat of authoritarianism looms over both sides of the Atlantic.
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| Installation view with Beckmann's paintings Bar, Brown and Still Life with Silver Candlestick |
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| Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait, 1926–36 (model), cast later. LACMA |
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| George Grosz's Portrait of Dr. Felix J. Weil with Kollwitz Self-Portrait |
Comments
And a poetical read.
Grosz is the dope. My favorite of his pictures is "Eclipse of the Sun" (coll. Heckscher Museum, Long Island). Long thought lost after he escaped the Nazis, it was later found rolled up in a house painter's garage. Another horrible facet in the history of German Expressionism...
https://www.heckscher.org/5048-2/