Max Beckmann
, German, 1844-1950
Title
Family Scene (The Beckmann Family)Date1918
MediumDrypoint etching on Simili Japon paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 47.5 × 33 cm
30.5 × 26 cm
Signedlower right: Max Beckmann
Credit LinePurchased, 2021
Object numberNGI.2021.112
Description(Familienszene (Familie Beckmann)), plate 2 of the Faces (Gesichter) portfolio.(1918, published 1919)
A copy from an edition of 40 on this paper before the plate was steel plated. Published by the Verlag der Marées Gesellschaft, R. Piper & Co., Munich 1919. Printer Franz Hanfstaengl, Munich.
The portfolio has a total of nineteen drypoints.
Faces (Gesichter) portfolio: First edition, 1919: 100 (including 40 printed before steel-facing on "Japan" paper, and 60 printed after steel-facing on laid paper, plus 4 known trial proofs; Posthumous edition, 1966: 110 (including 30 on "Japan" paper and 80 on wove paper).
Completed in 1918, just a year before Gesichter’s publication, ‘Family Scene’ is a depiction of the artist’s own family: in the foreground is his wife, Minna Tube-Beckmann. She sits serenely reading a book beside their child, Peter, who plays on a wooden hobby- horse; in the background Frau Tube, Minna’s mother, presides over the scene as a kind of matriarch while Beckmann himself leans in behind her. In contrast with many of the upsetting scenes that make up the rest of this series, ‘Family Scene’ is comparatively quiet and serene. As if to reference the peacefulness of the company of loved ones, Beckmann has inserted the moon, a lone star and curved cloud-forms in the sky above, symbols of serenity presiding over the family amidst the turmoil of wartime life. Beckmann looks out over the city buildings and the moon.
ProvenancePurchased, 2021