Permanent Collection wall label:
Like his fellow members of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, Max Pechstein was fascinated with the idea of an art that did not rest upon the European academic tradition. Trained as an architect rather than as a painter, Pechstein spent time in the ethnographic museums of Berlin and Dresden, where he studied the arts of Africa and the Pacific islands as a means of developing his own artistic language. He was also greatly influenced by French Post-Impressionism: his fascination with the art of the Pacific was seen through the filter of Paul Gauguin’s art, and this painting’s exotic elements—including what appears to be a Pacific wood carving– make an explicit link to Gauguin’s work. Similarly, the bright colors and flattened forms of this canvas resemble those used by Henri Matisse.


HUMAN BEAST exhibition label:
This canvas shows how greatly Pechstein, like his fellow members of Die Brücke, was influenced by Paul Gauguin. Composed in bright colors and flattened forms, the painting includes what appears to be a Pacific wood carving, making explicit the link to Gauguin’s work. In 1914, furthermore, Pechstein would travel to the Pacific island of Palau, again in emulation of Gauguin. Although actually painted in 1911-12, this canvas is so close to Gauguin’s Tahitian-period pictures that it was long thought to have been made after Pechstein’s return from Palau.
One of many double-sided paintings by Pechstein, the work is exhibited so that both sides can be seen, even though the landscape on the verso—one of Pechstein’s many scenes of nudes in a landscape —is turned 180 degrees. Examination of the canvas reveals that Pechstein painted the nude later and intended it to be the final, finished aspect of the work.
Last Updated: 10/4/2021