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Collection Guide

Collection Guide

Max Beckmann, German, 1884–1950; Sinking of the Titanic, 1912–1913; oil on canvas; 104 1/4 x 130 inches, framed: 109 11/16 x 135 7/16 x 4 7/16 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Morton D. May 840:1983

Max Beckmann

The Saint Louis Art Museum has the world’s largest collection of paintings and prints by Max Beckmann. This guide features a selection of works introducing the artist’s captivating art and eventful life.

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    AUDIO GUIDE TRANSCRIPT

    The transcript for each audio track is available in expandable sections of individual object pages.

Museum Floorplan

Introduction

  • Speakers   
      
    Min Jung Kim     
    Barbara B. Taylor Director     
    Saint Louis Art Museum    
        
    Melissa Venator  
    Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art  
    Saint Louis Art Museum

    [Min]
    Hello, I’m Min Jung Kim, Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum.

    [Melissa]
    And I’m Melissa Venator, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

    [Min]
    I’m delighted to welcome you to the Collection Guides, a self-directed experience focusing on selected works of art across the Museum’s collection through multiple lenses. Collection Guides offer a diverse group of voices, narratives, and creative responses to works of art from around the world that capture life’s beauty and joy, struggles and triumphs, through varied lived experiences and perspectives.

    [Melissa]
    The Saint Louis Art Museum has the world’s largest collection of paintings and prints by the German artist Max Beckmann. This guide will introduce you to Beckmann—to his captivating art and his eventful life—and explain how this collection of more than 400 artworks came to St. Louis. The trip will take us from Berlin to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and New York in the turbulent years of the First and Second World Wars.

    The paintings in this guide are some of Beckmann’s best, but they’re only a fraction of our total holdings. Visit the online collection search to discover even more of his art here at the Museum, or purchase the Museum’s catalog Max Beckmann at the Saint Louis Art Museum: The Paintings by Lynette Roth.

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