The Beckmanns’ house in Boulder, Colorado, 1949
The Beckmanns’ house in Boulder, Colorado, 1949
Hier in Boulder oder in Garmisch Partenkirchen zu sein, ist kein großer Unterschied, nur außerordentlich schöne u. andere Blume[n] giebts hier. Aber das Leben in so einer Gebirgsuniversität ist ganz amüsant. (…) Ich habe irrsinnig gearbeitet in St. L.[ouis] und verschnaufe hier gewissermaßen und werde auch noch dafür bezahlt. (…)
[Being here in Boulder is not that different from being in Garmisch Partenkirchen, but they have extraordinarily beautiful and different flowers here. Life at a mountain university is very amusing. (…) I worked like mad in St. L[ouis], while I am taking it relatively easy here and still getting paid for it. (ed. trans.)]
Max Beckmann in a letter to Reinhard Piper, June 1949
From 16 June to 28 August 1949 Max Beckmann lived with his wife in Boulder, Colorado, where he taught the “summer session” at the University of Colorado three days a week. Beckmann’s constant financial worries led him to accept such assignments, although his stay in these new surroundings also proved to be an inspiration. While there, a more select retrospective of Beckmann’s work – which had begun in St. Louis the year before – was shown at the University of Colorado Museum.
Beckmann wrote to his first wife Minna Beckmann-Tube: “I have taken on a summer job so that I can have a good rest because, after finishing my ‘Beginning’ [here he refers to his triptych The Beginning, 1946-49, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art] I was exhausted and I haven’t really had a holiday since 1933.” [Letter to his first wife Minna Beckmann-Tube, Letters Vol. 3, No. 934 (ed. trans.)]
Beckmann also wrote the following in his diary about his new surroundings: “Having some difficulty getting accustomed to living in what is actually a pretty nice bourgeois apartment. Fantastic colours in the sky, colourful flowers and the nature here has a somewhat eerie gaiety about it – but – whatever…” (ed. trans.) Max Beckmann, who all his life had a special relationship to nature, which played an essential role in his work, described the rock formations of the local mountains in Colorado as “petrified outbreaks of anger”, referring to the divine creator. (Letters, Vol. 3, No. 934)
The change in climate and the altitude (Boulder is situated more than 1,600 metres above sea level) was hard-going for both of them, something that Beckmann’s wife mentioned in a letter to her sister. She enclosed colourful postcards with impressive landscape views from Colorado in her letters.
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