Max Pechstein
Max Pechstein | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 29 August 1955 | (aged 73)
Education | School of Applied Arts, Dresden; Royal Art Academy, Dresden |
Known for | Painting, printmaking |
Style | Expressionism |
Movement | Die Brücke |
Hermann Max Pechstein (31 December 1881 – 29 June 1955) was a
Life and career
Pechstein was born in Zwickau, the son of a craftsman who worked in a textile mill. The family of eight lived on the father's salary.[1] An early contact with the art of Vincent van Gogh stimulated Pechstein's development toward expressionism. He first worked as a decorator in his home town before enrolling at the School of Applied Arts and then at the Royal Art Academy in Dresden, where he met the painter Otto Gussman and the architect Wilhelm Kreis.[2] It was here, starting in 1902, that he became a pupil of Gussmann; a relationship that lasted until 1906[3] when Pechstein met Erich Heckel and was invited to join the art group Die Brücke. He was the only member to have received formal art training. He was an active member of the Brücke until 1910 and often worked alongside Brücke painters creating a homogeneous style of this period. In 1905 he was in Dresden where the museum of ethnology showed wood carvings from the South Seas.[4] As a result he developed his first woodcut.
In 1907 Pechstein traveled to Italy to receive an award, and upon his return in 1908 spent time in Paris where he met the Fauvist painter
In 1912, after years of rising tensions, Pechstein was expelled from the Brücke after exhibiting some of his work in the aforementioned Berlin Secession all by himself and without paintings of other members of the Brücke.
Beginning in 1933, Pechstein was vilified by the Nazis because of his art. He was banned from painting or exhibiting his art and later that year was fired from his teaching position. A total of 326 of his paintings were removed from German museums. Sixteen of his works were displayed in the
Many of Pechstein's collectors were Jews whose collections were seized by the Nazis or lost owing to Nazi persecution. In May 2013 the Bavarian State Paintings Collections agreed to restitute Pechstein's White House, (1910) and his Meadow Valley (1911) to the heirs of Curt Glaser.[5] In July 2021, France decided to restitute to the heirs of Hugo Simon the Pechstein entitled Nus dans un paysage.[6] In 2023, Christie's brokered a settlement with the heirs of Robert Graetz, a Jewish textile industrialist and art collector who was deported and murdered by the Nazis, concerning Still Life With a Cup, which Graetz's daughter sold as a refugee in South Africa.[7]
He was a prolific printmaker, producing 421
.Personal life
He was married to Charlotte Karpolat from 1911 until 1923 and later was married to Marta Möller.[3] He died in West Berlin and is buried in the Evangelischer Friedhof Alt-Schmargendorf in Berlin.[8]
Works
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Pechstein, Woman's Head (Fraukopf), c. 1911, M.T. Abraham Foundation
Art market
At a 1999 Sotheby's auction, The Yellow Mask I (1910), the portrait of a woman wearing a yellow mask, was sold for $1.37 million.[9] In 2008, Zirkus mit Dromedaren (c. 1920) was auctioned for £1.9 million in London.
References
- ^ "Max Pechstein | Chronology". Pechstein.de. Archived from the original on 2014-01-04. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
- )
- ^ ISBN 3-89479-271-X.
- ^ http://www.pechstein.de in english
- ^ "Restitutions: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen restitute two watercolors by Max Pechstein from the Curt Glaser Collection and a painting by N.V. Díaz de la Peña from the George Behrens Collection". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
- ^ "France returns Pechstein painting looted in occupied Paris to heirs of Hugo Simon, a banker and leading figure in German cultural life". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 2021-07-02. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
- ^ "Christie's to auction Pechstein painting after settlement reached with heir". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 2023-11-03. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
- ^ "Bei knerger.de: Grave of Max Pechstein in Berlin-Schmargendorf". Knerger.de. Retrieved 2014-03-12.
- ^ Souren Melikian (16 October 1999), Glories of German Expressionism Emerge at Sales: An Era That Shrieked in Color International Herald Tribune.
External links
- Works by or about Max Pechstein at Internet Archive
- Max Pechstein at Artcyclopedia
- Official Max Pechstein Webpage/Catalogue raisonne of Pechstein's oil paintings
- Hermann Max Pechstein (1881 - 1955) Biography at Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany