... with Cecily Brown Ella Kruglyanskaya and Dana Schutz The three artists are born or are
living in the USA and have admired Max Beckmann's oeuvre since the beginning of their work.
Outside Germany Beckmann had always been regarded as the »most German of all artists«. The
Valkyrie (l.) was one of the first paintings after his arrival in the United States in 1947.
Cecily Brown delivered the impetus for the exhibition and publication in which numerous works
by Max Beckmann both private and museum-owned enter into dialogue with current works by the
three painters now part of the generation of grandchildren. In particular it is his »Letters
to a Woman Painter« - a speech given shortly after his arrival in the USA to students at
Stephens College in Columbia - that receive metaphorical replies. In Cecily Brown's paintings
created specifically for this occasion the influence is primarily of an atmospheric nature -
references to Max Beckmann's contours and hues are rather apparent. Ella Kruglyanskaya shows
portraits of women the canvas almost bursting with their vitality and they quite obviously
caricature the bar and coffeehouse staff of the master. Dana Schutz combines Max Beckmann's
recurring motifs in large-format works. In this way she accumulates the impressions and thereby
quite closely approximates his world. Thus all three artists present autonomous works that
attest to the timelessness of the »most German of all artists«. Exhibition:CFA Contemporary
Fine Arts Berlin 8 6 - 13 7 2019
