Speaker 
 
Melissa Venator  
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art  
Saint Louis Art Museum   

In the top left corner of this painting, below his signature, Max Beckmann inscribed “St.L. 47” to record where and when he made it—St. Louis, 1947. He left Amsterdam in that year to accept a temporary teaching position at Washington University. With the hardship and uncertainty of exile behind him, he wrote in his diary: “St. Louis. Finally a park. Finally trees, finally solid ground underneath my feet. A beautiful dream.” He stayed for two years and became the center of a lively circle of artists, art students, and collectors. One was Morton D. May, who bought his first painting by Beckmann in 1948 and sat for a portrait the following year. May’s encounters with the artist only fueled his desire to build a major Beckmann collection.

The first assignment Beckmann gave his students at WashU was to paint a still life. He warned them, “If you want to reproduce an object, two elements are required: first, the identification with the object must be perfect; and second, it should contain, in addition, something quite different.” The different “something” in this still life includes the curious pair of candlesticks, one upright with a lit candle and the other overturned. The candlelight illuminates a woman’s face, which is actually a wooden statue. The ambiguity between lifelike inanimate objects and lifeless human figures is a recurring theme in Beckmann’s art.