.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The cramped space of the present work hosts a compendium of Beckmann's wartime imagery. The four palettes of the work's title, the artist's fundamental tool, are arrayed across the center of the composition. To the left, a bottle bearing illegible script but suggestive of happy, social times; to the right, a bust, its heavy brow and strong jaw identify it as Beckmann's sculptural self-portrait, modelled in 1936. Between these upright forms are two books--to combat bouts of insomnia, Beckmann read heavily at this time--and what appears to be a page of sheet music. And, at the heart of the composition, stands a flickering candle, a necessity due to wartime privation for sure, but also, iconographically, a symbol of truth and virtue on one hand, and a pungent memento mori on the other.
Mortality was much on the artist's mind. As Beckmann worked on Stilleben mit Paletten in Amsterdam in October 1944, he anxiously awaited the advancing Allied armies that had made landfall in Normandy the preceding June. The Allies advance, however, further complicated Beckmann's situation. He feared that Dutch nationalists, emboldened by the retreat of the German armies, would victimise any Germans in their midst. And thus, notwithstanding his position as a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime, Beckmann went into hiding in September 1944. His protector was Dr. Helmuth Lütjens, a German national who had assumed Dutch nationality and had run the Amsterdam branch of Paul Cassirer's gallery from 1923, and who was the first owner of the present work. Jill Lloyd takes up the story: "In February 1943, Göpel became aware of a threat to confiscate Beckmann's paintings, and he asked Lütjens to hide a number of works from the artist's studio in his house on the Keizersgracht. In this sense, Beckmann's paintings also became 'divers,' and a friendship grew up between the artist and the cultured, reserved man whom Beckmann referred to as 'Knight L' in his diary. During the winter of 1944-1945 they spent their Friday mornings together, viewing Beckmann's paintings from the hidden store" (Max Beckmann, exh. cat., Tate Modern, London, 2003, p. 205).
Mortality was much on the artist's mind. As Beckmann worked on Stilleben mit Paletten in Amsterdam in October 1944, he anxiously awaited the advancing Allied armies that had made landfall in Normandy the preceding June. The Allies advance, however, further complicated Beckmann's situation. He feared that Dutch nationalists, emboldened by the retreat of the German armies, would victimise any Germans in their midst. And thus, notwithstanding his position as a staunch opponent of the Nazi regime, Beckmann went into hiding in September 1944. His protector was Dr. Helmuth Lütjens, a German national who had assumed Dutch nationality and had run the Amsterdam branch of Paul Cassirer's gallery from 1923, and who was the first owner of the present work. Jill Lloyd takes up the story: "In February 1943, Göpel became aware of a threat to confiscate Beckmann's paintings, and he asked Lütjens to hide a number of works from the artist's studio in his house on the Keizersgracht. In this sense, Beckmann's paintings also became 'divers,' and a friendship grew up between the artist and the cultured, reserved man whom Beckmann referred to as 'Knight L' in his diary. During the winter of 1944-1945 they spent their Friday mornings together, viewing Beckmann's paintings from the hidden store" (Max Beckmann, exh. cat., Tate Modern, London, 2003, p. 205).