Picture "Lion Couple" (1921)
Picture "Lion Couple" (1921)
Quick info
limited, total 150 copies | here: roman numbered | signed | lithograph on Japanese paper | framed | size 55 x 40.5 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Lion Couple" (1921)
Max Beckmann's artistic themes mainly revolved around life in the big city and its alienated population after World War I. He liked to depict the life of his epoch as a circus or theatre performance. His copulating lion couple of 1921 is not a pure animal study but a symbol of human drives and the lasciviousness of German society between the world wars.
This lithograph was created during a time when political conditions in Germany had temporarily calmed down. Beckmann, who was involved in the intellectual life of the 1920s and was respected as an artist, discovered the leisure to work on humorous subjects such as this one for his pictures. One lithograph copy can even be found in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Original lithograph, 1921. Edition: 50 copies numbered in Roman numerals on Japanese paper (offered here) + 100 copies marked with Arabic numerals on woven handmade paper, signed by hand. Motif size 41 x 29 cm. Sheet size 52 x 37.5 cm. Size in frame 55 x 40.5 cm as shown.
Producer: ars mundi Edition Max Büchner GmbH, Bödekerstraße 13, 30161 Hanover, Germany, [email protected]
About Max Beckmann
1884-1950
Max Beckmann, born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1884, seems like a solitary figure in the avant-garde of his time. While the emerging modern movement gradually led painting programmatically towards complete non-objectivity, Beckmann aligned himself with the art-historical tradition and consciously linked his art to the painting of the late 19th century.
A recurring motif in his works is the sea, which he once described in an interview as his "old friend". In his early works, he portrays it as a mysteriously vital space of existential experience, while during the National Socialism era, it transforms into a motif of freedom, departure, and escape.
In 1910, Beckmann was elected as a board member of the Berlin Secession, the youngest ever to achieve this status, and later his art was declared "degenerate" by the Nazi regime. Today, Beckmann is considered one of the most significant representatives of German Expressionism. His works are exhibited in many major modern art museums and sell for top prices at auctions.
The field of graphic arts, that includes artistic representations, which are reproduced by various printing techniques.
Printmaking techniques include woodcuts, copperplate engraving, etching, lithography, serigraphy, among others.