Mother and Child
Max Beckmann, 1936
Image not available: work still under copyright
Mother and Child is an oil-on-canvas painting by the German artist Max Beckmann, dated 1936. It shows a nearly nude, full-bodied woman calmly nursing a boy held in her arms. She looks down at the child with a serious, composed expression, so the scene feels more like quiet closeness than sentimental tenderness. Although the colours are vivid, the overall effect is surprisingly dark. That tension reflects the change in Beckmann's work after the First World War, when the horrors of war pushed him toward a more radical expressionism. Heavy black strokes, thickly applied and rapidly executed, show his admiration for Georges Rouault. Fernando Botero later bought the painting directly from Beckmann's widow, Mathilde "Quappi" von Kaulbach, who helped keep track of her husband's catalogue raisonné. Botero counted it among his favourite works, and it now belongs to the Bank of the Republic and hangs at the Museo Botero in Bogotá.
- Painter
- Max Beckmann
- Date
- 1936
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Museum
- Botero Museum, Bogotá