Self-Portrait as a Circus Barker, from The Annual Fair

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Self-Portrait as a Circus Barker, from The Annual Fair

Artist Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950)

Date1921

DimensionsH. 13 1/4 in. (33.7 cm): W. 9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm)

MediumDrypoint

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineWinthrop H. Perry Fund

Object number

1954.44

Not on View

Label TextBeckmann 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.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Prints as Portraits, 1959-1960.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Modern Print, March, 1959.

Toledo Museum of Art, Patterns for the Eye, January 6 - March 23, 1997.

Between the Wars, September 5 - December 31 2008.