Max Beckmann was born into a middle-class family in Leipzig, Saxony on February 12, 1884. From his youth he pitted himself against the old masters. He served in World War I, which transformed his style from an academically correct depiction to a distortion of both figure and space, finding new means for his altered vision of himself and humanity.

He is exceptionally well known for the self-portraits he painted throughout his life, the number of them being rivalled only by Rembrandt and Picasso. Well-read in philosophy and literature, he contemplated mysticism and theosophyin search of the Self.

In the Twenties, Beckmann enjoyed great success, being officially honored by the Weimar Republic. However, he fell foul of Hitler's dislike of Modern Art. In 1933, the Nazi government dismissed him from his teaching position at the Art School in Frankfurt, and showed some of his works in the notorious 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition. For ten years, Beckmann lived in poverty in self-imposed exile in Amsterdam, failing to obtain a visa for the US. The works completed in his small Amsterdam studio were even more powerful and intense than the ones of his master years in Frankfurt.

After the war, Beckmann managed to move to America, and during the last three years of his life, he taught at the art schools of Washington University in St Louis and Brooklyn Museum. His late works mirror the landscapes, skyscrapers and the populace of mid-century America.

He suffered from angina pectoris and died on December 28, 1950, struck down by an apoplexy on 61st Street/Central Park West downtown Manhattan. Many of his paintings are now displayed in American museums. Max Beckmann exerted a profound influence on such American painters as Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston.