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Max Beckmann , German, 1844-1950

Title

The Tightrope Artist

Date1921

MediumDrypoint etching on wove paper

Dimensions

Sheet: 53 × 38 cm

26 × 25 cm

Signedlower right: Max Beckmann

Credit LinePurchased, 2021

Object numberNGI.2021.111

DescriptionPlate 8 from Annual Fair (Der Jahrmarkt) Portfolio
(1921, published 1922)
A numbered copy from an edition of 125 on this paper.
Sheet 8 from the series of 10 etchings entitled “Der Jahrmarkt”, published by Verlag der Marées Gesellschaft, R. Piper & Co., Munich 1922.

In Beckmann’s Annual Fair (Der Jahrmarkt) portfolio he imagines the world as a travelling carnival, crowded with an eclectic cast of actors, dancers and circus entertainers. On the title page, he adopts the role of the barker, ringing a bell for a traveling band of outsiders, the Circus Beckmann. In Beckmann's theatre of life everyone plays numerous roles. This portfolio of ten drypoints highlights the major themes that preoccupied the artist throughout his long and productive career: existential crisis, the alienation of modern life, and the conflict between the sexes. Beckmann's Expressionist manipulation of space and compression of his figures increase the emotional distance between the individuals, who appear to exist in their own worlds. In The Tightrope Walkers, Beckmann depicts himself and his wife, Minna, balancing on a tightrope—an allusion to Friedrich Nietzsche's 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which the philosopher describes man as a "rope" hung over an abyss between base animal and heroic Übermensch or superhuman. The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart acquired a copy of Beckmann’s Jahrmarkt portfolio in 1930, which was later deemed ‘degenerate art’ by the National Socialists and confiscated in 1937.
ProvenancePurchased, 2021