This generously illustrated and comprehensive book focuses on a decisive decade in Max
Beckmann's career as one of the leading figurative painters of the twentieth century. This
publication will provide insight into a critical period in the artist's development and the
accomplishments that earned him such high esteem. Max Beckmann's brief but profoundly jarring
service as a medical orderly during World War I led to a nervous breakdown. He assimilated his
experiences and incorporated recent and radical developments in art such as Cubism and
Expressionism leading him to advance new pictorial conceptions beginning in 1915. To many of
his contemporaries the work Beckmann created between 1917 and 1925 placed him at the forefront
of the latest developments in representational painting. In 1925 Beckmann's celebrated status
was confirmed by his prominence in the groundbreaking Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)
exhibition in Mannheim although he later distanced himself from the term. This book will
situate Beckmann artistically and historically. Essays by both established experts and emerging
scholars investigate the seminal energy found in the work he created between 1915 to 1925-a
period to which the artist himself repeatedly returned over the course of his lifetime. The
self- referential aspect of Beckmann's output is key to understanding his progression as an
artist which comes more clearly into focus via an analysis of these critical early years.
