Books, Arts & Manners: Defiant Images

Max Beckmann: Retrospective, edited by Carla Schulz-Hoffmann and Judith Weiss (Norton, 483 pp., $75)

This lavishly illustrated collection of 12 scholarly essays by German and American authors, with a catalogue of Beckmann’s 636 paintings, drawings, and prints, celebrates the centenary exhibition of one of the greatest modern painters at museums in Munich, Berlin, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Most of the essays are badly written, boring, and banal, though the ones on the War, the city, Amsterdam, and America are illuminating.

About the Author

Jeffrey Meyers

Mr. Meyers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of John Huston: Courage and Art.

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Max Beckmann: Retrospective, edited by Carla Schulz-Hoffmann and Judith Weiss (Norton, 483 pp., $75)

This lavishly illustrated collection of 12 scholarly essays by German and American authors, with a catalogue of Beckmann’s 636 paintings, drawings, and prints, celebrates the centenary exhibition of one of the greatest modern painters at museums in Munich, Berlin, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Most of the essays are badly written, boring, and banal, though the ones on the War, the city, Amsterdam, and America are illuminating.