print
- Museum number
- 1981,0725.44
- Title
- Object: Betrunkener Krüppel (Drunken Cripple)
- Description
-
Drunken cripple; one-armed man with group of men standing behind. 1914
Drypoint
- Production date
- 1914
- Dimensions
-
Height: 270 millimetres
-
Width: 210 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths, 'The Print in Germany 1880-1933', BM 1984, no. 127
This is one of the small group of some ten drypoints made between Beckmann's taking up the medium in 1912 and the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Although clearly different to the later prints, they are evidence that his style was already fast changing before the War began. The low subjects from the street or the brothel are unthinkable in his early prints of 1909 or 1911, and look forward to the post-War works. It seems that it was the pressure of the new subject-matter and the new linear style he was creating for it that led him to reject lithography, which he only knew as a tonal graphic medium. His first experiments in intaglio were in etching, but after a few attempts (Gallwitz 40-43) he gave this up for good and turned to drypoint, which provided everything he wanted in directness of record of his lines and a relatively straightforward possibility of making corrections.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1984/5 Sept.-Jan., BM, 'The Print in Germany 1880-1933', no. 127
- Acquisition date
- 1981
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1981,0725.44
