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The Max Beckmann
Gesellschaft has acquired important art historical documents for the
Max Beckmann Archive from a private collection
1,000 letters written by German Expressionists to the Frankfurt art collector Carl Hagemann (1867–1940)
Carl Hagemann was a leading supporter of the Expressionist movement.
His estate included approximately 1,000 letters, some featuring
drawings, written by major German Expressionists, especially the
artists of the Brücke group, and by members of their circle. The
letters possess unique significance for the history of Germany and its
art in the twentieth century. Thanks to the Max Beckmann Gesellschaft
e. V. they will not now be sold off individually, but will stay
together as a collection.
Hagemann corresponded with artists for thirty years. Pride of place
goes to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, from whom 346 letters exist in the
collection. Other artists represented include Karl Schmidt-Rottluff,
Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, and Ernst Wilhelm Nay. Letters also survive
from the Essen museum director Ernst Gosebruch, a victim of Nazi
persecution, like the artists he and Hagemann promoted.
The letters reveal an unusual degree of trust between the writers and
their addressee, containing not only biographical details, but also
information on the genesis of many works of art. Numerous letters
feature black-and-white or color sketches and prints. These possesses
an artistic value of their own, beyond their documentary interest.
The letters shed a unique light on the cultural life of Germany between
the two world wars and represent a cultural asset of the highest order.
The Max Beckmann Gesellschaft, a non-profit-making organization, has
succeeded in acquiring them for the Archive it maintains. The
Gesellschaft has made the acquisition with financial support from the
Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the
Bayerische Landesstiftung, the Hubert Burda Foundation, the Estate of
Eleonora Schamberger, and private donors. We thank them all for their
generosity.
The Max Beckmann Archive currently holds over 2,000 original documents.
They include approximately 270 by Beckmann himself, items originating
with members of his circle, and letters by Walter Benjamin, Gottfried
Benn, Ernst Barlach, Marc Chagall, Rainer Maria Rilke, Walter Gropius,
Oskar Kokoschka, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and many others. The
acquisition of the Hagemann letters will add greatly to the Archive’s
importance as a research resource for Expressionism and other aspects
of twentieth-century culture.
Holdings
The Archive houses over 1,400 letters, among
them approximately 250 Beckmann autographs and letters from Thomas
Mann, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, and others. There are notably
large holdings of letters written by the artist to Günther Franke,
Stephan Lackner, and Reinhard Piper, and by Mathilde (“Quappi”)
Beckmann to her sister Hedda. The Archive also contains a substantial
amount of correspondence among Beckmann’s friends and acquaintances,
including exchanges between Franke and his fellow art dealer I. B.
Neumann. Much material relating to Lackner Typescripts, copies of all
his publications, and much other material relating to Lackner has come
to the Archive from the writer himself and his heirs.
The Max
Beckmann Archive also houses some 6,000 photographs, 60,000 newspaper
cuttings, and 1,400 specialist publications. The Max Beckmann
Gesellschaft owns a large part of these holdings; a further part
belongs to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. Items are added
constantly to the collection. The Archive also regularly updates the
catalogues raisonnés of the artist’s paintings, drawings, prints, and
sculptures and the bibliography of publications about him. Recent Acquisitions
In
June 2005 two letters from Max Beckmann to Günther Franke were acquired
at auction along with the correspondence between I. B. Neumann and
Günther Franke (some 130 items).
In November of that year three photographs of Max Beckmann taken in
1938 by Helga Franke (née Fietz) were likewise acquired at auction.
The Archive’s holdings were further expanded in 2005 by the
acquisition from private owners of letters and postcards written by Max
Beckmann or members of his immediate circle. In addition, Dr.
Christiane Zeiller and Dr. Angelika Lenz gave the Archive several
postcards with views of places that figured in Beckmann’s life during
the First World War.
In July 2006 more Stephan Lackner documents were acquired, some
purchased, some received as gifts. In 2006 the Archive received two
precious gifts. In August Ina Beckmann-Deventer of Freiburg im Breisgau
donated two photographs, one of Max Beckmann’s sister Grete Zech, the
other of the house in Leipzig where the artist was born. The second
gift consisted of the original plan of Beckmann’s house in Hermsdorf.
In December 2006 a copy of Hans Moeller’s photograph Double Portrait
of Max Beckmann and Reinhard Piper (1922) by was acquired at auction
from the collection of Reinhard Piper.
In June 2008 the Max Beckmann Archive acquired an important series
of letters from the correspondence of Waldemar and Oda Rösler. They
include seven previously unpublished items from Max Beckmann, along
with Waldemar and Oda Rösler’s correspondence with such artists and
writers as Ernst Barlach, Gottfried Benn, Walter Gropius, Käthe
Kollwitz and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
In July and August 2008 the Max Beckmann Archive benefited from a
number of significant donations. They included nine letters written to
various recipients by Wolfgang Frommel, one of Beckmann’s most
important contacts in Amsterdam, an announcement of Frommel’s death,
and a late portrait photograph of the writer by his nephew Melchior
Frommel. All these documents were donated by the heirs of Gerhard
Frommel.
From Professor Peter Selz the Max Beckmann Archive received eighteen
photographs by Dímitri Hadzi (1921-2007) of Professor Selz and Peter
Beckmann, together with documents relating to the Beckmann exhibition
mounted by the donor in 1964 and to Documenta III.
Also in July, the writer Durs Grünbein donated an autograph copy of his
poem “Was ich bin (In memoriam Max Beckmann)” (What I am: In memoriam
Max Beckmann).
In August Mrs. Jeanette Scholz presented the Archive with an important
series of letters from Max Beckmann to Lilly von Schnitzler, eleven of
them unpublished, together with several letters from Lilly von
Schnitzler to various recipients and eleven photographs of Max Beckmann
taken by Helga Fietz in Amsterdam in 1938.
The heirs of Stephan Lackner, members of the Society to whom we already
owe a great deal of material, have donated four of the writer’s
manuscripts: Paar im Sturm/Matthias und Marina (Couple in a
Tempest/Matthias and Marina), 1961; Das verzauberte Echo (The Enchanted
Echo), 1955; Das Naturwunder (The Miracle of Nature), 1955; and Asche
(Professor Virrus) (Ash [Professor Virus]), 1955.
In June 2009 a letter from Max Beckmann to the art historian Hermann Flesche was acquired at auction..
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 | Letter from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Carl Hagemann
from April 7, 1930, with a color sketch for the projected mural in the Museum Folkwang, Essen
On permanent loan from the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung to the Max Beckmann Archive
© Dr. Wolfgang & Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
|  | Postcard from Siddi Heckel to Carl Hagemann
from May 1924, with a drawing by Erich Heckel
On permanent loan from the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung to the Max Beckmann Archive
© Erich Heckel Estate
|  | Letter from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Carl Hagemann from August 13, 1937, with a sketch for the painting
“Shepherds in the Evening”
On permanent loan from the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung to the Max Beckmann Archive
© Dr. Wolfgang & Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
|  | Letter from Otto Mueller to Carl Hagemann from August 16, 1918, with an original lithograph
Max Beckmann Archive
|  | Letter from the Mayor of Essen to Carl Hagemann from September 23, 1929
© Max Beckmann Archive
|  | Letter from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Carl Hagemann from Summer 1922, with a self-portrait
On permanent loan from the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung to the Max Beckmann Archive
© Dr. Wolfgang & Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
|  | Letter from Max Beckmann to Hermann Flesche, September 9, 1924
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Letter from I. B. Neumann to Günther Franke, October 3, 1928
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Max Beckmann in his Amsterdam studio, 1938
©Photo: Helga Fietz
|  | View of Strasbourg, wartime postcard, ca. 1915
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Shelled village near Ypres, wartime postcard, ca. 1915
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Safe conduct for Ernest Morgenroth (Stephan Lackner), 1938
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Plan for Beckmann’s house in Hermsdorf, Berlin, designed by Minna Tube, 1908
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Reinhard Piper and Max Beckmann in Munich, December 1922
©Photo: Hans Möller
|  | Wolfang Frommel to Gertrud Frommel, July 11, 1945
Donated to the Max Beckmann Archive on July 18, 2008 by the heirs of Gerhard Frommel
Acc. no. MBG III 2
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Portrait photograph of Wolfang Frommel by his nephew Melchior Frommel.
Donated to the Max Beckmann Archive on July 18, 2008 by the heirs of Gerhard Frommel
Acc. no. MBG III 2
©Foto: Melchior Frommel
|  | Peter Beckmann and Peter Selz in front of Lilly von Schnitzler’s house in Murnau, 1963
Donated by Professor Peter Selz, Berkeley, honorary member of the Max Beckmann Society, in July 2008
©Foto: Dímitri Hadzi
|  | Durs Grünbein, “Was ich bin” (What I am)
Donated to the Max Beckmann Archive on July 24, 2008 by the author
Acc. no. MBG VIII 5
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Max Beckmann, Lilly von Schnitzler, 1929
Black chalk, 356 x 262 mm
Private collection
|  | Manuscript of Stephan Lackner’s novel Paar im Sturm/Matthias und Marina, 1961
Donated by the heirs of Stephan Lackner in August 2008
Acc. no. MBG IV 1
© Max Beckmann Archiv
|  | Peter Selz in front of Lilly von Schnitzler’s house in Murnau, 1963
Donated by Professor Peter Selz, Berkeley, honorary member of the Max Beckmann Society, in October 2009
Acc. no. MBG VII 8
©Foto: Dímitri Hadzi
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