The Villa Grizibach auction house said that a wonderful self-portrait painted by artist Max Beckmann during World War II after fleeing Nazi Germany sold for 23.2 million Euros, which is a record price for a painting sold at auction in Germany.
Those responsible for the sale at the Berlin auction expected that the “self-portrait in yellow and pink”, which was painted in 1943, would be sold at a price ranging from 20 to 30 million Euros.
Beckmann, widely regarded as one of the most important modern artists of the last century, painted the painting while in exile in Amsterdam.
After the Nazis called his paintings “degenerate art,” Beckmann and his wife, Matilda, known as “Kwabe,” fled Germany in 1937. Beckmann waited in Amsterdam for years for a US visa, working under unfavorable conditions.
In the painting, Beckmann departed from his usual dark colors and painted himself dressed in yellow.
The auction house said the image, in which he stares away with his eyes and his meditation-like pose with his semi-bald head, makes him look like a Buddhist monk.
