Self-Portrait with Horn

Max Beckmann produced more than eighty self-portraits. This one marks a turning point in his life—he and his wife had just fled Berlin. Beckmann presents himself in stripes, like a prison uniform. Bathed in shadow, he gazes sideways, his eyes ringed with dark circles, his expression melancholy. A mirror with a bright yellow frame surrounds his head, but its black surface reveals nothing about his surroundings. In an ambiguous gesture, Beckmann holds up a horn. He points it not toward his mouth, as if to sound a warning, but closer to his ear, as if he were straining to hear a distant sound.

The year before Beckmann painted this picture, the state-sponsored “Degenerate Art” exhibition opened in Munich. Vilifying the works of avant-garde and non-traditional artists as dangerous, perverse and subversive, it subsequently toured Germany and Austria and was seen by almost three million viewers. Beckmann was one of the most prominent painters targeted by the show’s Nazi organizers.

After hearing a radio program by Adolf Hitler threatening the so-called “degenerate” artists with imprisonment or sterilization, Beckmann and his wife Quappi immediately left Berlin for Amsterdam where her sister Hedda lived. They traveled lightly so as to not arouse suspicion. Their landlord forwarded their remaining possessions before the Nazis could seize them. The couple remained in Amsterdam for ten years as part of a large community of artists living in exile. In this work, Beckmann noted his new living situation by painting the letter “A” for Amsterdam at the bottom of the canvas, beneath his signature.