Beckmann's role as a chronicler of the displaced in reckoning with exile
German painter Max Beckmann (1884–1951) developed a unique pictorial style, using a realistic idiom full of symbolic references to offer a potent account of the upheavals of the 20th century and their personal effects. He was associated with, but not reducible to, both German Expressionism and New Objectivity. More than 60 of Max Beckmann's works, including paintings, lithographs, and sculptures, are collected in Max Beckmann: Exile Figures. Beginning with his years in Germany—from his first exposure to the public before World War I through the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s, when he was fired from his teaching position in Frankfurt and prohibited from exhibiting in public—the publication provides a thorough overview of Beckmann's life and career. Following this, Beckmann established himself in exile in Amsterdam and America, where he spent the rest of his life. This book uses metaphors of exile to analyze the artist's entire career, both physically and in terms of the existential state of contemporary man. Several themes of exile and alienation are explored in Max Beckmann: Exile Figures, including the identity loss associated with exile, the modern city as the capital of exile, the similarities between exile and death, and the infinite's dual abilities to seduce and alienate.