Max Beckmann

Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (acquired from the artist in 1947)
Wladimir Selinsky, New York (acquired in 1952)
Thence by descent to the present owner 

Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery - The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy & Bloomington, Max Beckmann, Paintings from 1940 to 1946, 1947, no. 6 (titled Circus)
Albion, Albion College, Max Beckmann, 1948
New York, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, Max Beckmann: Paintings and Drawings, 1985, no. 11

Erhard and Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann, Katalog der Gemälde, Bern, 1976, vol. I, no. 656, catalogued p. 395; vol. II, no. 656, illustrated pl. 238

The canvas is unlined. There are no signs of retouching visible under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although the red and pink tones are slightly more subtle in the original.
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Painted in 1944, Elefant und Clown im Stall was created during the most fruitful and inventive phase of Beckmann's career, which occurred while he was living in exile in Amsterdam during the Second World War. Many of his works executed during this time are considered the most important of his œuvre, including imposing self-portraits and mythologically-inspired triptychs depicting scenes of plight and peril (figs. 1 & 3). The artist was constantly ill at ease during the ten years he spent in Amsterdam, but what he might have lacked in satisfying experiences, Beckmann made up for in his art. Before moving to the United States in 1947, the artist summed up his time in Holland in a letter to his friend and patron Stephan Lackner: 'May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, full to the brim with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger and always again work - in spite of everything' (quoted in Max Beckmann Retrospect (exhibition catalogue), St. Louis Museum of Art, 1984, p. 155).

The theme of circus performers, clowns, actors and the 'alternative reality' that their worlds represent was a recurrent Leitmotiv in Beckmann's major canvases (fig. 2). Benno Reifenberg, a friend of the artist, recalled: 'Beckmann did not really go to the opera or the theatre, but he regularly visited the Variété at the Schumann-Theater (...) It was a real pleasure to accompany him, to hear his constructive, competent criticism of the artists' work and to observe his almost companionable admiration for a particularly good performance' (quoted in Erhard and Barbara Göpel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 154-55, translated from German). The artist himself wrote: 'We are all acrobats. They have the same goal as there is in art and with all people: the will to reach a balance and to keep it (quoted ibid., p. 155, translated from German).

In the present work, the clown in his dunce cap, with painted face and huge paw-like hands, stands next to and looks at the elephant handler, a man whose long hair and headband suggest an American Indian, dressed in pink and wearing a harlequin's collar. His left arm hangs down and merges into a cone-like shape and the wild black outlines stand in strong contrast to the angular zigzags on his trousers. The picture is dominated by a great elephant, whose trunk reaches to the handler whilst his all-encompassing eye gazes out at and engages with the viewer. Beckmann often saw himself in the role of the clown, writing in his diary: 'All I am is a ridiculous, old clown (quoted in Klaus Gallwitz (ed.), Max Beckmann, Gemälde 1905-1950 (exhibition catalogue), Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, 1990, p. 236, translated from German) and commenting on the depiction of clowns in his works, he noted: 'A clown is very difficult to execute because of his exaggerated concreteness' (quoted in Erhard and Barbara Göpel, op. cit., vol. I, p. 382, translated from German). 

Like Beckmann's triptychs (fig. 1) and the many symbolic self-portraits (fig. 3) that the artist painted in Amsterdam, the symbolic meaning in Elefant und Clown im Stall remains ambiguous. The enigmatic effect of the composition, rich with interpretative possibility, is typical of Beckmann. In the present composition, the artist presents the viewer with the possibility of an escape into an alternative world, distanced from the grim facts of everyday reality. The positioning of the clown and the elephant handler in the foreground, slightly engulfed in the trunk of the elephant, and the dark folds of the velvet red curtain draw the viewer's eye towards them. Tightly positioned next to each other within the narrow confines of the canvas, the figures do not appear to communicate with each other, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and isolation. There is no doubt that this sense of escape and tension was a very real part of Beckmann's existence in exile in Amsterdam, where he worked largely alone except for the company of his wife Quappi and a few close friends. Despite this undercurrent of discomfort, the present work is a powerful example of Beckmann's undying optimism, humour and creative energy.