The Man with the Rainbow

Max Beckmann seemed to keep a rainbow of hot and cold colors in his pocket, undiminished by wanton use. His color sense made him a reputation as Germany's greatest living artist. Gallerygoers who saw Beckmann's new show in Manhattan last week went away dazzled--but depressed by what the colors clothed.

Beckmann is an "expressionist," which means that he paints not to make a pretty picture but to show what's on his mind. His mind, to judge by his paintings, is a riot--a gloomy riot of sadism and seduction, only occasionally quieted by the beauty of a landscape or a bouquet of flowers. He can paint the night sky over Nice to look thick and sweet as creme de menthe, but he is more apt to conceive of a windmill as a torture machine.

At 63, Beckmann's jut-jaw, sunken, unblinking eyes and clifflike brow are like an Easter Island idol's. He has been through a lot. Ten years ago, the Nazis hounded him out of Germany as a "degenerate" artist. His huge canvases, smeared furiously with spangled acrobats, usherettes, dwarfs and Roman centurions, shocked Hitler. Caught in Amsterdam by the war, Beckmann painted there, as Picasso did in Paris, throughout the German occupation (TIME, May 6, 1946). His invading countrymen chose to leave him precariously at peace. His life in The Netherlands was, he recalls, rather like "a desert island."

Manhattan Island last week was not a bit like that. Beckmann--who had come to the U.S. to teach at St. Louis' Washington University--was in town for the show, and loving every minute of it. The bulky sightseer had peered from the roof of the Empire State Building and made himself at home on Broadway. He liked best in Manhattan the things most people dislike: the crowds, the rush, and what he called the "roughness." Said Beckmann proudly, "I too am rough."

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