Self-Portrait as a Circus Barker, from The Annual Fair
Artist: Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950)
Date: 1921
Dimensions:
H. 13 1/4 in. (33.7 cm): W. 9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm)
Medium: Drypoint
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Winthrop H. Perry Fund
Object number: 1954.44
Label Text:Beckmann presents himself as a carnival barker with a bell, summoning customers to his "Circus Beckmann" advertised on the placard behind. The dangling cigarette, twisted features, and harshly hatched lines give him the character of a cynical tough fronting a seedy circus. Beckmann returned repeatedly to circus/fairground/stage themes (see his 1923 painting The Trapeze upstairs in Gallery 7), representing what he called the "Theater of the World (Welttheater)." They were his complex metaphors for the social behaviors and survival strategies forced on the individual by the arbitrariness of existence.
Not on view
In Collection(s)