Falling Man (Beckmann)

Falling Man is an oil-on-canvas painting by the German artist Max Beckmann. The work was created in New York City during the final year of his life when he was living in the United States, since he had left the Netherlands in 1947. The painting is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.[1]

Falling Man
ArtistMax Beckmann
Year1950
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions141 cm × 88.9 cm (56 in × 35.0 in)
LocationNational Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The work is considered eerily predictive of the jumpers and other doomed people falling from the World Trade Center Towers during the September 11 attacks in New York City, on a similar setting to the painting, clear blue day.[2]

Falling Man is said to be preceded in Beckmann's opus by some of the drawings he did for his 1943–44 illustration of Goethe's Faust II which contains multiple images of falling men.[3][4]

The painting was included in the 2016–17 exhibition of the artist's work Max Beckmann in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[5]

References
  1. "Max Beckmann - Falling Man, 1950". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  2. Klein, Lee (September 2003). "Art on the Eve of Destruction". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. MIT Press. 25 (3): 20–25. doi:10.1162/152028103322491656. ISSN 1537-9477. JSTOR 3246416. OCLC 39511092. S2CID 57563836. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  3. ""Max Beckmann in New York," Metropolitan Museum of Art, through February 20, 2017". AEQAI. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  4. Haxthausen, Charles (January 2003). "(PDF) A Poetics of Space: Max Beckmann's "Falling Man" | Charles Haxthausen". Max Beckmann, Edited by Sean Rainbird. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  5. Johnson, Ken (20 October 2016). "'Max Beckmann in New York,' a Belated but Full-Blown Homage to a German Modernist". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
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