30/10/2023
Max Beckmann met Minna Tube in 1903 at the Grand-Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar, where they were both studying painting. The couple married in 1906 and their son Peter was born in 1907, after they had moved to Berlin. Minna was a very good painter, but also an opera singer, and her husband had problems with that. She gave up painting and pursued a career as an opera singer, performing in cities in Austria and Germany.
This portrait of the artist’s wife was completed in 1924 when it was more or less clear that divorce was imminent. Another shift is reflected in Beckmann’s style. Aware of Pablo Picasso’s work at the time, Beckmann shows how he tries to rival the French artist. Picasso’s work had shifted from the fractured forms of Cubism to an idealized reimagination of ancient classical sculpture. This painting reflects that.
NOW ON VIEW
“Max Beckmann: The Formative Years, 1915-1925”
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Max Beckmann, “Portrait of Minna Beckmann-Tube,” 1924, oil on canvas. Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Stiftung Günther Franke. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York