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Pablo Picasso | Max Beckmann

Mensch – Mythos – Welt
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal und Sprengel Museum Hannover

Zwei heimliche Rivalen der Moderne?

Pablo Picasso (b. Málaga, 1881; d. Mougins, 1973) and Max Beckmann (b. Leipzig, 1884; d. New York, 1950), who lived through the eventful years of the fin de siècle, two world wars, and the dawn of the postwar era, rank among the most influential modernist artists and have shaped our perspective on the twentieth century like few others. Setting out from dierent starting points, they independently arrived at individual solutions to major problems in art, producing oeuvres that insistently probed essential questions of human existence. Despite their diverging creative visions, their positions repeatedly intersect in surprising ways. Although Beckmann spent time in Paris on several occasions, the two artists in all likelihood never met in person. Still, each took note of what the other was doing and responded to his work.

As part of the international project Célébration Picasso 1973–2023, which commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death, the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal and the Sprengel Museum in Hannover mount this pioneering exhibition bringing the two artists face to face on a broad basis. The comprehensive publication Pablo Picasso | Max Beckmann: Mensch—Mythos—Welt elaborates on the comparative study of the two artists’ oeuvres with essays by Antje Birthälmer, Alexander Leinemann, Roland Mönig, Didier Ottinger, Olaf Peters, and Reinhard Spieler.