Presentation of the conference proceedings from the symposium at the Pinakothek der Moderne and  Voices of Exile – reading by Jenny König

12 March 2026
6 p.m.
Fasanenstraße 25, 10719 Berlin

Welcome address
Diandra Donecker (Managing Director and Partner, Grisebach)

Mario von Lüttichau (Scientific Advisor to Grisebach) in conversation with the editors of the volume:
Oliver Kase (Head of the Max Beckmann Archive and Director of the Modern Art Collection at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich)
Cathrin Klingsöhr-Leroy (Chair of the Franz-Dieter and Michaela Kaldewei Cultural Foundation, Ahlen)

Reading from letters and diaries by Max Beckmann and authors in exile and emigration by actress and narrator Jenny König

Admission is free – unfortunately, we cannot guarantee a seat.

Max Beckmann is considered one of the most researched artists of classical modernism. Since his death in 1950, more than 4,500 publications have appeared. The Nazi era, during which he was defamed as a "degenerate artist," and his emigration mark turning points in his biography. Surprisingly, however, Beckmann's life and work from 1933 to 1945 have hardly been systematically examined on the basis of source criticism. This research gap was the subject of a symposium organised by the Kaldewei Cultural Foundation and the Max Beckmann Archive of the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich in May 2024. This volume brings together the multifaceted contributions of the conference and opens up new perspectives on the artist's work.

Edited by Oliver Kase for the Max Beckmann Archive of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich, and Cathrin Klingsöhr-Leroy for the Franz Dieter and Michaela Kaldewei Cultural Foundation, Ahlen.

The Max Beckmann Archive is an artist archive dedicated to the life and work of Max Beckmann. Founded in 1977, the archive is affiliated with the Bavarian State Painting Collections as a research institution and collection of documents and photographs relating to the artist. The Bavarian State Painting Collections also hold the largest collection of the artist's paintings in Europe. The constantly growing archive holdings comprise over 5,000 letters, including almost 500 autographs by Max Beckmann, as well as 6,000 photographs, around 60,000 newspaper clippings and well over 1,400 special publications. One of the most important additions is the donation received in 2016 from the Beckmann family, which includes the estates of Max Beckmann, his first wife Minna Beckmann-Tube, his second wife Mathilde Q. Beckmann, his son Peter and his wife Maja Beckmann.

Franz Dieter and Michaela Kaldewei established the Kaldewei Cultural Foundation in 2012, based in Ahlen, Westphalia. The foundation is dedicated to promoting art and culture, primarily research into German Expressionism.

In recent years, the foundation has intensively promoted research on Max Beckmann by initiating and financing the creation of a freely accessible digital catalogue raisonné of the artist's paintings (2021) and his colour works on paper (2024). This also gave rise to the idea for the conference "Max Beckmann in National Socialism" at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich 2024, which forms the basis for this publication.