Max Beckmann

Baron Rudolf Freiherr von Simolin, Berlin and Seeseiten (acquired directly from the artist in 1930)

Baroness Rudi von St. Paul, Seeseiten (acquired by descent from the above in 1945 and until at least 1964)

Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 22 June 1990, lot 9

Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired from the above by October 1990 by the present owner

Munich, Graphisches Kabinett (Günther Franke), Max Beckmann—mit neuen Bildern aus Paris, 1930, no. 9

Kunsthalle Basel and Kunsthaus Zürich, Max Beckmann, 1930, no. 95, pl. 10, p. 11, illustrated (dated 1930) (Basel); no. 82, p. 9 (Zurich)

Paris, Galerie de la Renaissance and Brussels, Galerie Le Centaure, Max Beckmann, 1931, no. 31 (Paris); no. 15 (Brussels)

Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Nyere tysk kunst, maleri og Skulptur, 1932 (dated 1931)

Munich, Galerie Günther Franke, Max Beckmann, 1946, no. 56 (dated 1930)

Munich, Haus der Kunst; Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg and Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Max Beckmann zum Gedächtnis 1884–1950, 1951-52, no. 80, p. 51 (Munich and Berlin) (dated 1930); no. 26 (Amsterdam) 

Kunstmuseum Luzern, Deutsche Kunst. Meisterwerke des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1953, no. 231, p. 48 (dated 1930)

Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunsthalle Basel and The Hague, Gemeente Museum, Max Beckmann 1884-1950, 1955-56, no. 52, p. 29 (Zurich); no. 44, p. 28 (Basel); no. 37, n.p. (The Hague) (dated 1930) 

Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne; Munich, Haus der Kunst and Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Max Beckmann, 1968-69, no. 44 (Paris and Brussels), p. 38; no. 41, n.p. illustrated (Munich)

Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris—Berlin: Rapports et contrastes France-Allemagne, 1900-1933, 1978, no. 30, p. 3 

Hans Eckstein, “Max Beckmann,” Das Werk, vol. 17, no. 9, 1930, p. 263, illustrated (dated 1930)

Otto Fischer, “Die neueren Werke Max Beck­manns,” Museum der Gegenwart, vol. I, no. 2, 1930, p. 97, illustrated; p. 98

Franz Roh, “Kunst der Gegenwart München, 1930,” Der Cicerone, vol. 22, nos. 13-14, 1930, p. 391, illustrated (dated 1929-30)

Carl Einstein, Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1931, p. 496, illustrated; p. 644 (dated 1930)

Julie Elias, “Provinz-Küche,” Omnibus, 1931, p. 138, illustrated (dated 1930)

Carlo Tridenti, “Il funerale dell’Espressionismo,” Il Giornale d’Italia, vol. XXXII, 1 March 1932, p. 3, illustrated (titled Pescatore)

Franz Roh, Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts: Max Beckmann, Munich, 1947, pp. 3-4; pl. 4, illustrated in color (dated 1930)

Benno Reifenberg and Wilhelm Hausenstein, Max Beckmann, Munich, 1949, no. 296, p. 73 (dated 1930) 

John Anthony Thwaites, “Max Beckmann—Notes for an Evaluation,” Art Quarterly, vol. XIV, no. 4, Winter 1951, fig. 4, p. 277; p. 279, illustrated (dated 1930)

Hans Vollmer, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, vol. I, Leipzig, 1953, p. 151 (dated 1930)

Hans Curjel, “Ausstellungen Luzern. Mei­sterwerke deutscher Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Werk, vol. XL, no. 8, August 1953, p. 125, illustrated

Erhard Göpel, “Zirkusmotive und ihre Verwand­lung im Werke Max Beckmanns. Anlässlich der Erwer­bung des »Apachentanzes« durch die Bremer Kunst­halle,” Die Kunst und Das schöne Heim, vol. LVI, no. 9, June 1958, p. 329 (dated 1930)

Hans Martin Freiherr von Erffa and Erhard Göpel, Blick auf Beckmann, Dokumente und Vorträge, Munich, 1962, pl. 24, illustrated; p. 260

Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts and Art Institute of Chicago, Max Beckmann, 1964, p. 50, illustrated; pp. 52 and 154 (titled The Big Catfish)

Charles S. Kesslder, Max Beckmann’s Triptychs, Cambridge, 1970, p. 20 (titled The Big Catfish)

Friedhelm Wilhelm Fischer, Max Beckmann. Sym­bol und Weltbild, Munich, 1972, fig. 32, pp. 83-84; p. 85, illustrated

Erhard Göpel and Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann. Katalog der Gemälde, Bern, 1976, no. 312, vol. I, p. 225; vol. II, pl. 8, illustrated in color; pl. 108, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Max Beckmann, 1984, p. 58, note 24

“Zu Max Beckmanns Gemälde »Tod« in der Berliner Nationalgalerie,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. XXXIX, nos. 1-4, 1985, p. 131 (dated 1922)

Günter Busch, Max Beckmann: Der Wels, Bern, 1990, illustrated in color on the cover

Exh. Cat., Düsseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Einblicke: Das 20. Jahrhundert in der Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 1990, p. 361

Karin von Maur, Max Beckmann: Reise auf dem Fisch, Stuttgart, 1992, fig. 3, p. 11; p. 12, illustrated

Max Beckmann; Klaus Gallwitz, Uwe M. Schneede and Stephan von Wiese, eds., Max Beckmann Briefe. 1925-1937, vol. II, Munich, 1994, pp. 129, 151, 159, 222, 374, 381 and 424

Peter Selz, Max Beckmann, New York, London and Paris, 1996, fig. 45, p. 44, illustrated; p. 45 (titled The Big Catfish)

Günter Busch, Das Gesicht: Aufsätze zur Kunst, Frankfurt, 1997, pp. 270-71, 273-80 and 369; p. 272, illustrated

Wendy Beckett, Beckmann and The Self, Cologne, 1997, p. 93, illustrated in color; p. 118

Thomas Heinze, ed., Kulturmanagement II: Konzepte und Strategien, Opladen, 1997, pp. 178 and 186

Exh. Cat., Madrid, Fundación Juan March, Max Beckmann, 1997, p. 58

Exh. Cat., Kunsthaus Zürich and The Saint Louis Art Museum, Max Beckmann and Paris, 1998-99, pp. 189-90, illustrated (in installation photograph of Paris, Galerie de la Renaissance, 1931); p. 191 (dated 1930)

Didier Ottinger, “Beckmann en eaux troubles,” Les Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne, no. 76, Summer 2001, p. 112, illustrated; pp. 113 and 119, note 1

Richard Spieler, Max Beckmann 1884-1950: The Path to Myth, Cologne, 2002, p. 100, illustrated in color

Olaf Peters, Vom schwarzen Seiltänzer: Max Beckmann zwischen Weimarer Republik und Exil, Berlin, 2005, pp. 151, note 92, and 545, note 69

Uwe Fleckner, Carl Einstein und sein Jahrhundert: Fragmente einer intellektuellen Biographie, Berlin, 2006, fig. 138, p. 213; p. 214, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Bern, Zentrum Paul Klee, Max Beckmann—A Dream of Life, 2006, p. 65 (note 11)

Felix Billeter, Max Beckmann in der Pinakotek der Moderne, Munich, 2008, p. 343 (in photograph of the artist’s handlist)

Markus Lörz, Neuere Deutsche Kunst: Oslo, Kopenhagen, Köln 1932, Rekonstruktion und Dokumentation, Stuttgart, 2008, p. 350 

Dietrich Schubert, Max Beckmann vom Vietzker-Strand zur Departure. Die Kristallisation seiner Werturteile und sein bildnerische Praxis 1904-1936, Petersberg, 2021, p. 200 (titled Der Größe Fisch (Wels))

Anja Tiedemann, ed., Max Beckmann Catalogue Raisonné der Gemälde, no. 312, illustrated in color, https://max-beckmann.org/mb/g/312 (accessed on 10 June 2025)

Painted in Paris in 1929, after a summer in the Italian coastal town of Viareggio with his second wife, Mathilde von Kaulbach, known as Quappi, Der Wels reflects Beckmann’s fascination with the tension between what can be seen and what lies hidden. Four figures—a fisherman, two women, and a looming catfish—are arranged within a shallow, stage-like space. This theatrical construction invites the viewer to look beyond surface description and to engage with a symbolic narrative. The figures are not passive sitters but players, each performing a role in a carefully staged encounter.

Always part actor, Beckmann often cast himself in different roles. Sometimes directly, sometimes through surrogates, he appeared as clown, prophet, king, and in his Selbstbildnis mit weißer Mütze (1926) (see fig. 1), as a sailor or fisherman. Der Wels continues this performative tradition: the fisherman suggests a role for the artist, while the parasol-shaded woman opposite recalls Quappi, echoing her earlier appearance in Lido (1924) (see fig. 3). The composition, playful yet enigmatic, emerges as a coy portrait of a couple, their intimacy refracted through allegorical staging.

Beckmann’s move to Paris in 1929 was decisive. Though he returned to Frankfurt monthly to teach at the Städelschule, he immersed himself in the city’s artistic life. In a letter to his dealer I. B. Neumann he declared, “Only in this way will we be able to bring our matter to international discussion and get out of this damned German provinciality” (Unpublished letter to I. B. Neumann, dated Frankfurt, 24 November 1928, Max Beckmann estate; reproduced in Tobia Bezzola, “Quappi in Blue”, Max Beckmann and Paris, New York, 1998, p. 22). Paris was the epicenter of modernism, home to Picasso, Léger, Braque, and Matisse, and Beckmann sought to measure himself against them directly.

Among these contemporaries, Picasso commanded Beckmann’s closest attention. The parallels between Der Wels and Picasso’s Baigneuses au ballon (1928) (see fig. 4) are striking. Both stage bathers against simplified seaside architecture, with a bath shed marking the edge of the scene like a prop that masks even as it frames. From this shared device, their differences become clear. Picasso fractured form into angular abstraction, turning the body into sculptural rhythm. Beckmann, by contrast, preserved figuration and invested his characters with psychological gravity and narrative ambiguity. In Der Wels he positioned himself not as emulator but as rival, answering Parisian innovation with a language rooted in allegory, theatre, and human presence.

A constant student of art history, Beckmann engaged with the past from early in his career and continued to draw on it throughout his life. His experience as a medical orderly on the German frontlines during the First World War deepened this dialogue: in France and Flanders he encountered the late Gothic and early Renaissance traditions of German and Flemish art, as well as the luminous geometries of medieval stained glass. These discoveries left a lasting imprint on his pictorial language, not only in form but in their suggestion that the visible could carry hidden, transcendent meaning.

In Der Wels, these influences are unmistakable. Figures gather with the density of Gothic horror vacui, every inch of the surface alive with meaning, while the catfish dominates the canvas with the presence of a devotional icon. Heavy black outlines recall the contours of stained glass, sharpening forms even as they heighten luminosity. At the same time, Beckmann fused these Northern resonances with his admiration for Italian Renaissance painting, where clarity of form was often the vehicle for spiritual presence.

Echoes of Piero della Francesca’s Madonna della Misericordia (ca. 1460) can be seen in the composition (see fig. 5). Like della Francesca’s panel, Beckmann’s arrangement places figures in the foreground, grouped in a triangular formation around a commanding central motif. In Der Wels, the fisherman and Quappi echo the protective sweep of the Madonna’s mantle, while the fish occupies the devotional center. Here, the ordinary becomes emblematic: a fisherman, a woman, a fish, all transfigured into modern allegory. This parallel demonstrates Beckmann’s ability to adapt historical formats into modern allegories, always with the goal of penetrating the visible world to reveal the invisible truths it conceals.

At the heart of the composition is the fish itself, a recurring symbol throughout Beckmann’s career. As art historian H. W. Janson observed, it was for him a “primeval symbol of male creative force and spirituality,” uniting vitality with transcendence (Charles S. Kessler, Max Beckmann’s Triptychs, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970, p. 20). In Der Wels the catfish is rendered at heroic scale, elevating an everyday catch into an emblem of mythic presence. The motif reappears throughout his oeuvre, sometimes incidental, as in The Dream (1921), and sometimes central, as in Frauenbild (Fisherinnen) of 1948, always functioning as a bridge between the tangible and the symbolic. In his 1938 speech, On My Painting, Beckmann described his goal as penetrating “as deeply as possible into the visible” to grasp the invisible. The fish embodies this paradox, its corporeal presence masking symbolic force even as its monumentality discloses it.

In this way Der Wels connects past and present not through explicit religious iconography but through motifs charged with associative depth. The densely arranged figures recall devotional imagery, but the scene unfolds not as liturgy but as allegory—an everyday moment transfigured into a confrontation of myth and modernity. More than a still life or genre scene, the painting becomes a symbolic drama, one that resonates with the psychological and spiritual tensions of the interwar period while remaining firmly grounded in tangible form.

Through concise and inventive motifs, rendered in a luminous and rigorously structured composition, Beckmann transforms ordinary appearances into enduring symbols. His ability to generate such mythic resonance from modern experience aligns with broader currents of European art in the interwar years, when Surrealism and metaphysical painting sought to uncover hidden meaning in the everyday. Some scholars have suggested that Beckmann’s engagement with myth was stimulated by his encounters with Surrealist circles in Paris, where he would have encountered the work of Giorgio de Chirico and Salvador Dalí. Comparisons between Der Wels and de Chirico’s Bagni misteriosi (1934) or Dalí’s Figures Laying on the Sand (1926) underscore this dialogue: in each case, ordinary subjects are transformed into sites of metaphysical tension, simultaneously familiar and uncanny. Beckmann’s painting emerges as a distinct response to the international avant-garde, infusing his figurative idiom with allegorical depth that renders Der Wels both contemporary and timeless.

By the end of the 1920s Beckmann’s paintings had achieved a monumental clarity that would define his later triptychs. Der Wels anticipates this development: its scale, density, and symbolic compression prefigure works such as The Departure (1932–1935), where motifs of confrontation and concealment expand onto an epic stage. In this sense, the painting stands at a turning point, summing up Beckmann’s Paris years while foreshadowing his most ambitious allegories.

The importance of Der Wels was recognized immediately upon its completion. In 1930 it entered the collection of Baron Rudolf Freiherr von Simonlin, one of Beckmann’s most important patrons, who remained steadfast in his support even after the artist was declared “degenerate” by the Nazi regime in 1937. The painting was prominently featured the following year in Beckmann’s first major Paris exhibition at the Galerie de la Renaissance, where it was carefully chosen as part of his effort to establish his reputation among the authoritative voices of the French avant-garde (see fig. 1). Since then, Der Wels has been shown widely in Europe and beyond, securing its place as one of the most significant works of Beckmann’s Paris years and underscoring its exceptional standing within his oeuvre. Today, paintings of this ambition from his Paris period are exceptionally rare, further enhancing its importance.

Seen in retrospect, Der Wels emerges not only as a masterwork of Beckmann’s Paris years but also as a pivotal step toward the monumental allegories that followed. Its fusion of past and present, of visibility and concealment, of everyday motif and symbolic charge, embodies the paradox at the heart of Beckmann’s art: the pursuit of the invisible through the visible. That paradox is perhaps best captured in his own words to the art historian W. R. Valentiner, when, asked about the fish, he replied half seriously and half satirically: “Man originated in the sea and we all derive from the fishes, every male still has something of a particular fish about him” (W. R. Valentiner, “Max Beckmann”, Blick auf Beckmann: Dokumente und Vorträge, Munich, 1962, p. 85; reproduced in Sister Wendy Beckett, Max Beckmann and The Self, New York, 1999, p. 93). Beckmann’s remark highlights the openness of his symbols, which move between humor and profundity, surface and depth. In Der Wels, those shifting registers coalesce in a painting that is at once personal and universal, firmly of its time yet resonant far beyond it.