1944, Max Beckmann, Bar, Brown -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
From the museum label: Bar, Brown, painted during the dark days of World War Il, depicts five figures, two of whom may be the artist himself and his wife, Mathilde "Quappi" von Kaulbach. The claustrophobic composition, further compressed by the painting's narrow frame, suggests people forced into uncomfortable proximity, like Beckmann's own exile community marooned in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation. Beckmann sold this painting soon after it was finished to the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who kept it until the end of his life. Gurlitt was a complicated figure; he bought art the Nazis considered "degenerate" from desperate sellers and acquired Nazi-approved works for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. Beckmann, however, considered Gurlitt fair, and noted that the dealer had promoted his art during difficult times.
1944, Max Beckmann, Bar, Brown -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
From the museum label: Bar, Brown, painted during the dark days of World War Il, depicts five figures, two of whom may be the artist himself and his wife, Mathilde "Quappi" von Kaulbach. The claustrophobic composition, further compressed by the painting's narrow frame, suggests people forced into uncomfortable proximity, like Beckmann's own exile community marooned in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation. Beckmann sold this painting soon after it was finished to the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who kept it until the end of his life. Gurlitt was a complicated figure; he bought art the Nazis considered "degenerate" from desperate sellers and acquired Nazi-approved works for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. Beckmann, however, considered Gurlitt fair, and noted that the dealer had promoted his art during difficult times.