Details

Title

Madhouse (Irrenhaus)

Artist/Maker

Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950)

Date

1918

Medium

Etching and drypoint on laid paper

Dimensions

9 3/4 × 11 7/8 inches

Credit

Purchase with funds from the Lawrence and Alfred Fox Foundation for the Ralph K. Uhry Collection

Accession #

72.28

On View

Currently not on view

The cramped composition, the figures’ jarringly different scales, and the range of clashing emotions—these unsettling features express the artist’s terrible experience in a mental institution. Max Beckmann, like many artists of his generation, was profoundly affected by World War I. He volunteered for service in the medical corps, but in 1915 he suffered a nervous breakdown due to the horrific misery and death he witnessed. Beckmann translated his intensely disturbing experiences, as well as his empathy for humanity’s suffering, into his art.

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