From December 3, 2025 to March 15, 2026, Stedel Museum Organize an exhibition that focuses on Max Beckmann (1884-1950) worked as a draftsman.
Source: Stedel Museum · Image: Max Beckmann: “Wman with Candle (Quappi)”, 1928
The Stedel Museum houses one of the most important Beckmann collections in the world. His works have been collected and studied for more than a hundred years. The museum’s newest iconic work is the 2019 Self-Portrait with a Champagne Glass (1919). Since 2021, important permanent loans from the Karin and Rüdiger Warhard Collection have been added to the museum’s collection. In the winter of 2025, the Stedel Museum turns its focus to the draftsman Max Beckmann (1884-1950).
Some eighty works, many of them on public display for the first time, will document the development of his graphic work, from early sketches to late painterly masterpieces. Painting is of central importance to Beckmann and accompanies him through all stages of his work. In drawing, he shaped his personal worldview, creating works in pencil, charcoal, chalk and pastel, transforming fleeting impressions into meaningful, multi-layered works. The exhibition shows Beckmann at his most intense and creative. A selection of paintings and colored works on paper also provide insights into the artistic process and the interplay between different media.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of a three-volume catalog of the complete works of Beckmann’s paintings compiled by Hedda Finke and Stephan von Wiese. In addition to paintings from the Stedel Museum’s own collection, the exhibition also features loans from renowned international museums and private collections. This comprehensive special exhibition invites visitors to rediscover one of the most important artists of the 20th century through hitherto little-known aspects of his work.
