Max Beckmann was in Paris for the first time in 1903, and then again in 1906. From 1925, he was there almost every year and rented a studio there from 1929 to 1932. He also stayed there in 1938 and 1939 and he wanted to stay in Paris as an emigrant, but the outbreak of War took him by surprise in Holland. The metropolis, which was after all the centre of modern art and where Max Beckmann wanted to find his place, was Paris and not Amsterdam.

He created several paintings during stays in Paris, among these Place de la Concorde by Day. It shows a scene looking from a balustrade across the famous square between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe with an obelisk and some vehicles, the Eiffel Tower in the background and the green edges of the square made up of a dense line of trees at the very back. An aeroplane and a colourfully patterned balloon liven up the sky like in his Frankfurt paintings. The painting is a kind of counterpart to Place de la Concorde by Night, although the latter is in landscape, while this one is in panel format.

Max Beckmann painted landscapes from when he was young, but was also interested at an early stage in the city including important cityscapes of Berlin, Frankfurt upon Main and Genoa, and later of San Francisco. In Place de la Concorde the painter has chosen a location and a view that was and is familiar to everyone. It is not the dense urban fabric in which he is interested; rather this painting of Paris resembles the view of a park characterised by an openness and expansiveness which, in its cheerful colours (the light ochre of the ground, the bright sky above the green of the trees, the colourful balloon) resembles the view of a park. The artist was obviously relaxed when he painted this picture, although he did not know what the future in exile would bring him.

Christian Lenz, Max Beckmann Archiv