'BECKMANN AND PARIS'

"Portrait of N.M. Zeretelli," 1927, by Max Beckmann

"Algerian Woman," 1909, by Henri Matisse

"Harlequin," 1918, by Pablo Picasso

ST. LOUIS -- German painter and one-time St. Louisan Max Beckmann longed for the world fame of contemporaries Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. That he was denied that renown in his lifetime but deserves more recognition now is the thesis of the show "Beckmann and Paris" now at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Beckmann was very famous in Germany in the early 1920s but began spending time in Paris in an attempt to acquire a more worldwide reputation. But the exhibition's co-curator, Cornelia Homburg, says he had little success in Paris.

"His style of painting was very forceful and he had a great sense of expression and power," Homburg said. "That didn't correspond very well to the more aesthetic concerns the artists working in France had."

It was also politically incorrect to be a German painting in Paris at the time. But as the St. Louis exhibit illustrates, Beckmann had much in common with his artists and deserves to be viewed in more than just a German context.

"He had his own ambitions, his own plans," Homburg says. "But we also see how much his work is related to the issues that were being debated in France. The result of his art is just different."

Beckmann returned to Germany from France to see his art was banned by the Nazis, leading to his exile in the Netherlands and eventual move to America.

It was in the U.S. that Beckmann finally began to gain critical notice. He lived in New York for a time and moved to St. Louis to teach at Washington University for two years before returning to New York shortly before his death in 1950.

Largely because of his years in St. Louis and because May department store family members were avid collectors of his work, the Saint Louis Art Museum owns the largest collection of Beckmann paintings in the world. For the exhibit, it has assembled nearly 100 works by the artist and contemporaries Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger, Georges Rouault and Robert Delaunay for an exhibition that re-evaluates his work by placing it alongside that of the artists he considered rivals.

Beckmann had argued that his work would be considered the equal of theirs if ever hung together in the same gallery. It's true, Homburg says.

"There are some absolutely phenomenal masterworks here. Beckmann can stand up to that work with great confidence. He definitely was as good as they are and has important things to say."

Homburg, a German native who holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Amsterdam, is a Van Gogh expert who was an assistant curator at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1988 and 1990.

"Beckmann and Paris" continues at the museum through May 9. Hours are 1:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays.

An international symposium, "A Studio in Paris: Beckmann and Modernism in France," will be presented Feb. 27-28.

For information, phone (314) 721-0072, Ext. 204.