MAX BECKMANN – DEPARTURE

Max Beckmann

DEPARTURE, 1932-35

Oil on canvas, triptych, centre panel 215,3 x 115,2 cm, side panels 215,3 x 99,7 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York
© 2022. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

Details   

MAX BECKMANN – DEPARTURE

Pinakothek der Moderne | Kunst
Room 21–26
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This large-scale monographic exhibition is initially dedicated to the theme of travel, which was of existential importance to Max Beckmann (1884–1950) in both a biographical and symbolic sense. His life was marked by tragic experiences of war and uprooting, transit and exile, but also by glamorous vacations, the urge for freedom and the longing to travel. Around 70 loans from important private and public Beckmann collections in Europe and the USA, such as the first triptych DEPARTURE from MoMA, show the enormous range of travel-oriented pictorial motifs and concepts and complement the largest European collection of Beckmann paintings from the Modern Art Collection. Through a donation from Max Beckmann's family estate to the Max Beckmann Archive of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections) in 2015, numerous previously unknown materials and documents such as photo albums and films are presented for the first time, providing a new and up-to-date view of the artist.

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME

Coinciding with the exhibition is an extensive programme of activities and educational events. The curators have joined up with Kino der Kunst, an independent festival of art films, to come up with a cinematic programme inspired by Beckmann’s own trips to the movies. Meanwhile, questions of migration and identity form the thematic point of “departure” for a collaborative project with YouthNet, a Munich-based intercultural youth network. The project sees young people with and without experience of displacement reflect on their personal stories in relation to Max Beckmann’s biography. The results will go on display in a small presentation in the exhibition galleries. Also accompanying the show is an exhibition app, newly developed for the Pinakothek der Moderne, in which numerous experts from various fields share their views on the art. 

 

Max Beckmann, Sea with Large Cloud, 1943 Oil on canvas, 90.5 x 50 cm
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderne Kunst at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
© Photo: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a 350-page catalogue published by Hatje Cantz (German/English), designed by the award-winning Büro Bonbon, Zurich. In addition to illustrations of all the paintings on display and numerous previously unpublished archive materials and objects from the Max Beckmann Archive, the catalogue also contains introductory essays per theme, art-historical texts, and specially commissioned literary pieces by diverse authors such as Jim Arthur, Maria Cecilia Barbetta, Josefine Berkholz, Barbara C. Buenger, Ulrike Draesner, Françoise Forster-Hahn, Maike Grün, Sarah Louisa Henn, Florian Illies, Dževad Karahasan, Oliver Kase, Sibylle Lewitscharoff, Patrice Nganang, Nina Peter, Uljana Wolf, Christiane Zeiller and Hanns Zischler.

Max Beckmann – DEPARTURE
Hatje Cantz, 352 pp., 250 ills.,
German/English, 24.00 x 31.00 cm
54 Euro, ISBN 978-3-7757-5245-9

Admission

Ticket for exhibition
TUE–SUN €10, conc. €7

Ticket for exhibition and all other displays at the Pinakothek der Moderne
TUE–SAT €15, conc. €10 | SUN €11, conc. €8

Add-on ticket for Max Beckmann exhibition for holders of the “€12/5 museums” day-ticket
TUE–SAT €5, conc. €3 (add-on not available SUN)

For full details on admissions and concessions, visit:
https://www.pinakothek.de/tickets