Beckmann Sketchbook 11 1915

This is Max Beckmann’s Sketchbook 11. It's a book, and it looks like it's been through a lot. What stories could it tell, if it could talk? The whole surface is this intense blue. It is kind of distressed, almost like a faded denim. Beckmann, he was always searching, always trying to capture the essence of human experience. You can tell that it's been carried around, shoved in bags, maybe even used as a makeshift table at some point. I imagine Beckmann lugging this thing around, maybe during the war, sketching in cafes, on trains, always observing, always capturing. You can almost feel the weight of history in his hands, the urgency of needing to record, to make sense of it all. And it must have been hard for him. It reminds me a bit of my own process: the constant struggle to find the right mark, the right color, the right way to express what's inside. We are always trying to make something new, but you know, someone else has had a similar idea before you. Artists are constantly conversing with each other.