"Self Portrait with Champagne Glass," Max Beckmann, 1919.
Beckmann (1884-1950) was a German artist, printmaker, sculptor, and writer, commonly associated with the Expressionist style although he mostly identified with the New Objectivity movement, related to Expressionism but rejecting its introverted emotionalism. He was a big success in Weimar Germany, but his work was judged "degenerate" by the Nazis and it was removed from museums. He fled to Amsterdam, and then to the US upon receiving a professorship at Washington University in St. Louis.
Well-read in psychology and philosophy, his art often showed a quest for the Self, so he did a lot of self-portraits. While on the surface this shows him as an elegant dandy, in a reflection of Dutch Golden Age painters showing jolly drinkers, here he shows himself looking unhealthy, with a skull-like face and strange pallor, and his body almost twisted and distorted. The cartoonish laughing man in the background is almost sinister and disturbing. It's a strange view, perhaps showing a sense of the decadence of the Weimar republic and perhaps a sense of the growing fascist presence.
From the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.
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