We are delighted to present the first highlight of our upcoming anniversary auctions from 1 to 3 December: Max Beckmann's "Bathers with a green cabin and sailors with red trousers".
The painting was purchased directly from the artist's studio immediately after it was created. Since then, it has remained in the family without interruption. The recently published revised catalogue raisonné of Max Beckmann's paintings notes the following about the painting: Whereabouts unknown. Correspondence preserved in the collector family's archive suggests that the painting was first exhibited in 1956 at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf. In 1964, "Badende mit grüner Kabine und Schiffern mit roten Hosen" (Bathers with green cabins and sailors with red trousers) was on public display for the second - and last - time in the special exhibition "Deutsche Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert Malerei und Plastik aus Privatbesitz" (German Art in the 20th Century - Paintings and Sculptures from Private Ownership) at the Suermondt Museum in Aachen. - in public.
This masterpiece, previously only available in black and white illustrations, can now be discovered for the first time in its full splendour at Grisebach.
After a stay in Zandvoort, the seaside resort on the Dutch coast, which was one of the artist's favourite holiday destinations, the painting was created in his Berlin studio in the summer of 1934. Here, Beckmann depicts the seascape he had loved since his youth. Populated by only a few people, the painting captivates with the masterful rhythm of the staggered pictorial elements and a sublimely luminous sky zone of great beauty.
With this painting, Grisebach has once again emphasised its position in Germany as an authority in the trade in works by Max Beckmann, a position it has held for decades. In 2018, Beckmann's "Egyptian Woman" fetched 5.5 million euros, the highest price ever achieved for a painting at auction in Germany. Micaela Kapitzky, Grisebach Managing Director and expert in modern art, says: "Beckmann's "Bathers with Green Cabin and Sailors with Red Trousers" from 1934 is a significant example of Beckmann's painting from the early 1930s and at the same time a work of transition. Three years after it was created, the artist, who was ostracised by the National Socialists, emigrated to Paris, and a year later to Amsterdam. We are delighted that this masterpiece has been entrusted to us and that we are once again able to auction such a highly significant work by Max Beckmann."
Berlin, 30 August 2021