MAX PECHSTEIN German, 1881-1955

Max Pechstein was a German Expressionist painter and printmaker known for his boldly colored nudes and landscapes. “Art is not a pastime, it is a duty with respect to the people, a public affair,” the artist once stated. Born Hermann Max Pechstein on December 31, 1881 in Zwickau, Germany, he studied art in Dresden where he met the painter Erich Heckel. In 1906, Heckel invited him to join the collective Die Brücke which had been formed a year earlier by Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Primarily working in the Impressionist tradition, after joining the group Pechstein began painting in a vibrant Fauvist palette. In a similar vein to Paul Gauguin, Pechstein became interested in primitive art from other cultures as an influence after visiting the Dresden Ethnographical Museum. This interest in the imagery and culture of exotic locales is evinced in his vibrant 1910 painting, Indian and Woman. In 1914, the artist traveled to the Palau Islands in the South Pacific so he could experience the culture first-hand. Pechstein’s art was deemed “degenerate” by the Nazi regime in 1933 and he was forced to resign his teaching position at the Berlin Academy, though it was reinstated after the war. He died on June 29, 1955 at the age of 73. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina in Vienna, and the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, Germany, among others.