Max Beckmann Lot n° 702

Max Beckmann - Portrait Jeanne Kaumann. Oil on canvas. (19)13. Approx. 96 x 77.5 cm. Signed and dated at the center right edge of the picture. - Characteristic portrait from Beckmann's early work phase before the First World War - Jeanne Kaumann is the niece of the well-known Hamburg art collector Henry B. Simms, who owns the most extensive collection of Beckmann paintings before the First World War - Since 1994 in the renowned collection of Serge Sabarsky, New Gallery New York The portrait Jeanne Kaumann was created in 1913, in an important year for the only 29-year-old artist Max Beckmann. His first solo exhibition of almost fifty paintings is shown by Paul Cassirer in Berlin in January, and at the same time the first monograph written by Hans Kaiser is published by Cassirer-Verlag with an overview of his works up to 1912. Beckmann is established as a renowned artist and is supported by a solid collector base. Among them was the Hamburg merchant and art collector Henry B. Simms, from whom Beckmann received a commission for a large family portrait at the beginning of 1913 (Göpel 164). Simms, who was advised by Alfred Lichtwark, the first director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, owned the most extensive collection of early Beckmann paintings in Germany before the First World War. In addition to Lovis Corinth, Arthur Illies and Valentin Ruths, his collection also includes French Impressionists such as Monet, Renoir and Sisley, as well as early Picasso works and 26 paintings by Auguste Herbin. Simms' house in Harvestehude on the Alster is a popular meeting place for art lovers and artists at the time. It was there that Simms' brother-in-law Albert Kaumann, also an art-loving merchant and neighbor, met Max Beckmann and had him paint a portrait of his 17-year-old daughter Jeanne in the summer of 1913. Beckmann chose neutral, mostly dark backgrounds for his portrait commissions at this time, hinting at the influence of the admired Rembrandt. He depicts the youthful Jeanne Kaumann against such a dark reddish-brown background in a fine white dress, which he renders with broad, loosened brushstrokes in an extremely nuanced manner. The only piece of jewelry she wears is a narrow bracelet, otherwise the focus is on her natural youthful beauty. In a 1966 letter, Jeanne Kaumann describes her personal memories of the portrait sessions with Max Beckmann in July and August 1913 (quoted in Göpel 1976, p. 121). "My mother had been enthusiastic about a portrait of Beckmann's wife - whole figure, bright dress, B's (Beckmann's) favorite format - that I believe my uncle (Henry B. Simms) owned at the time (Göpel 120). Now Beckmann came in the summer of 1913 for several weeks to my parents' house in Hamburg, Harvestehuderweg 122, to paint my portrait, although not in the deliberate format. I probably could not have stood for so long, because each session lasted quite a while in the morning until he was then finished, for weeks. Corinth painted a magnificent portrait of my father in 3 or 4 mornings! I was 17 years old at the time, just out of boarding school in Switzerland, and had brought a Swedish girlfriend with me. (...) We had a lot of fun with Beckmann and a very enjoyable time. There was horse riding and every evening we were in our boats rowing or sailing on the Alster." A photograph exists of Beckmann's stay with the Kaumann family in the summer of 1913, showing the artist with the two young ladies. Jeanne is wearing the same delicate white summer dress there as in the painting. The artist thanked Albert Kaumann at the end of August for the "charming stay" by letter: "(...) I would like to tell you again how very comfortable I felt in your house and how fondly I think back to this time. I wish very much that you will continue to enjoy the portrait." (quoted from: Max Beckmann. Briefe, vol. I 1899-1925, Munich/Zurich 1993, p. 84). In November, at Beckmann's request, Kaumann borrows the portrait of his daughter for the autumn exhibition in Berlin, and in the following February it is exhibited at the Kunstverein Hamburg. The painting remained in the possession of the Kaumann family for decades; for a time it was on loan to the Hamburg Kunsthalle before it was auctioned off at the Hamburg auction house Hauswedell & Nolte in 1994. There it was acquired by the legendary art dealer and collector Serge Sabarsky. Together with the entrepreneur Ronald Lauder, Sabarsky, a native of Vienna, founded the "Neue Galerie New York" museum for German and Austrian art, which opened in 2001 on Central Park in New York and in the immediate vicinity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From this unique collection, which is characterized by Sabarsky's unerring sense for German art before the Second World War, now comes the Beckmann portrait by Jeanne Kaumann offered here. Verso on the stretcher inscribed in pencil "Kaumann" as well as with