Max Beckmann (1884-1950)

Max Beckmann was only seventeen when he made his first printed self-portrait in 1901, depicting himself as an isolated, screaming head (Hofmaier 2). His last, showing a man in late middle age wearing a beret, came sixty-two years later. In the intervening forty-five years he returned to his own likeness as a subject no fewer than thirty-five times, rivalling Rembrandt as the possibly greatest self-portraitist in the history of printmaking.

The present lithograph is only his fourth self-portrait and the earliest to be at all obtainable, albeit very rarely. The first one, created in pure drypoint, exists in one impression only and is part of the artist's estate. The second, Self-Portrait with Beard (H. 5), exists only in two impressions, as does the third, Self-Portrait 1904 (H. 6), in which the artist presented himself for the first time as a dandy in a black-tie suit. In the present lithograph of 1911 he portrayed himself once again in what was to become his favourite attire, this time staring wide-eyed, almost menacingly, at the viewer. In its intensity and concentration on a seemingly disembodied head, it is reminiscent of another great self-portrait, created in the last years of the 19th century: Edvard Munch's famous self-portrait with a skeleton arm (see lot 32).