Portrait of Wolfgang Frommel [p. 25] 1944 - 1949

Max Beckmann made this portrait of Wolfgang Frommel with pencil, its date is unknown. The quick, scribbled marks feel so immediate, like Beckmann was trying to capture a fleeting expression or thought. It’s a process of searching, of finding the form through a web of lines, which, for me, is what drawing is all about. Look at the way he’s built up the shadows on the side of Frommel’s face with these dense, almost frantic lines. You can practically feel the pressure of the pencil on the page, the energy of Beckmann’s hand moving across the surface. Then, compare that to the looser, more gestural marks in the hair, and the blank space of the page that is used to define the shape of the jawline. It is this contrast that gives the work its dynamism. Beckmann reminds me a little of Otto Dix, in the way he fearlessly confronts the complexities of human nature. Art is a conversation across time, an exchange of ideas. There’s no one right way to see or interpret it.