Max Beckmann – On my Painting

Compiled and edited by George Scrivani in 1988, ‘On My Painting’ collects six texts from the pioneering German artist Max Beckmann (1884–1950), who fled Nazi Germany after his paintings – increasingly moody and reflective of the existential terror of the time – were labelled “degenerate”. In addition to the titular essay, this compact edition contains the short pieces “Creative Credo” and “The New Program”, plus extracts from Beckmann’s diaries, three “Letters to a Woman Painter”, and the text of a speech given to the philosophy faculty at Washington University in St. Louis shortly before his death in 1950.