Max Beckmann: San Francisco, Painting (1950)
Max Beckmann: San Francisco, Painting (1950)
War endlich wirklich in San Francisco und sah erstaunliche Sachen, die ich wahrscheinlich malen werde.
[I was finally really in San Francisco and saw amazing things that I will probably paint. (ed. trans.)]
Max Beckmann on 13 August 1950 in his diary
The painting was preceded by numerous visits to the city coming from the Mills College in Oakland, where he held a summer course.
The city is depicted roughly from the Presidio area south of the Golden Gate Bridge, although several views are combined; at front left The Palace of Fine Arts, in the centre the highway leading from the Golden Gate Bridge into the city centre and at the back left the Bay Bridge leading to Oakland. Beckmann must have been fascinated by a city that could offer such a view. Only once before had Beckmann painted such a picture - of Genoa; and the 1927 painting, though in a completely different style, does seem to echo here, with both looking from a high perch and sharing an arced sweep of the space, the harbour and the agglomeration of light-coloured buildings on the headland in the background.
The picture from 1950, however, displays a highly temperamental spirit, not least in the bold, dark lines that border everything, as if you were observing the painter at work and yet still able to sense something of the traffic on the highway as well. Beckmann selected the time around the evening in which large areas are already shaded, the setting sun still illuminates the clouds in the blue-grey sky and the crescent moon appears between them. San Francisco is the only important painting by a German artist of an American city up to the 20th century. With this painting, the emigrant made the new country, of which he ultimately wanted to be a citizen, his own.
Further reading:
Schütt, Jutta (Hg.): Max Beckmann & Amerika. Ausstellungskatalog. Frankfurt am Main: Städel-Museum 2011
Gallery
