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Artist or Maker: 1884-1950

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Date: Painted in Amsterdam in 1946-47.

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Description: signed Beckmann and dated A 47 (upper right); dedicated Happy Birthday July 3, 1947, Amsterdam by Curt Valentin on the stretcher

ITALIENERIN (ITALIAN WOMAN)

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Medium: oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 55 by 22.2cm.

21 5/8 by 8 3/4in.

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Provenance: Studio of the Artist
Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (acquired from the above)
Perry T. Rathbone, Cambridge, MA (a gift from the above on 3rd July 1947)
Thence by descent to the present owner

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Exhibited: St. Louis, St. Louis Collections, 1948, no. 4

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Published: Artist's handlist, 1946, no. 22
Erhard and Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann, Katalog der Gemälde, Bern, 1976, vol. I, p. 432, no. 722, catalogued; vol. II, pl. 265, no. 722, illustrated

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Notes: Max Beckmann painted this vibrant oil portrait, Italienerin in Amsterdam in 1946. His dealer, Curt Valentin, who was largely responsible for establishing Beckmann's reputation in the States, gave it as a birthday present to his friend, Perry Rathbone, the director of the City Art Museum, St. Louis, in 1947. Perry Rathbone, who met Beckmann through Valentin, was instrumental in organising the artist's emigration to the States in 1947, as well as in securing Beckmann's first teaching post at Washington University, St. Louis.

In his diary entries of 7th and 10th July 1946, Beckmann refers to Italienerin as being finished. The signature and date were added later by the artist, probably at the time when he sold the work to Curt Valentin. Several months after completing this work, in 1947, Beckmann left Amsterdam, where he fled from Germany with his wife Quappi tel years earlier. His Amsterdam paintings, including the present work, are often characterised by a long, narrow format, the constraints of which reflet the artist's feeling of confinement and discomfort during his years of exile. Despite the tension and grim facts of everyday existence during and immediately after the war, this period was one of the most productive and innovative in Beckmann's career.

Fig. 1, Max Beckmann in his Amsterdam studio, 1938