Max Beckmann (1884 Leipzig - 1950 New York). Zauberspiegel (Magic Mirror). 1946 Lithograph , with watercolours Hofmaier 369 B b (of B b). Signed, numbered 18/90 and inscribed with the plate number 'XIII'.30,5 x 21,7 cm (12 x 8,5 in). Sheet: 39,9 x 30 cm (15,8 x 11,8 in). One of the rare copies with watercolours. Plate 13 from the portfolio 'Tag und Traum' ('Day and Dream'), released by Curt Valentin, New York 1946 Provenienz: Private collection South Germany The portfolio entitled 'Tag und Traum ('Day and Dream"), from which our print came, was one of Beckmann's last graphic works. While he was living in the Netherlands, where he had fled in 1937, Beckmann received a commission to do a portfolio of prints from Curt Valentin, a publisher and art dealer who lived in New York but had been an acquaintance of Beckmann's since his Berlin days. Beckmann was given complete freedom of choice in designing the portfolio and was able to compose once again a sequence dealing with the themes that were most important to him. A self-portrait, everyday scenes, religious and mythological subject matter as well as general reflections on the human condition seem, viewed from today's perspective, like a last grand retrospective of his work. For the watercolours of what amounted to five sequences in all, Beckmann chose entirely different palettes. Our work has largely retained the character of a print in which the colours induce a subtle psychological effect. In 1947 Beckmann accepted the offer of being a visiting professor at the Washington University Art School in St. Louis so he moved to the US. There followed brief teaching stints at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York and, in summer 1950, at Mills College in Oakland, California. Max Beckmann died in New York on 27 December that year. [KR]."