Frau mit Kopftuch in Türöffnung (Woman with Headscarf in a Door) [p. 21] 

Curator: This drawing, entitled "Woman with Headscarf in a Door" is attributed to Max Beckmann. The medium appears to be pencil on paper, presenting us with an intimate, almost stark image. Editor: It’s deceptively simple. The almost naive lines give a certain monumental, heavy quality. The very bare-bones execution almost underscores how the image feels constrained. Curator: Well, and it's important to situate an image like this within the broader socio-political context of Beckmann’s career. We have a figure here who’s quite clearly framed within an architectural threshold. In a literal sense it indicates a woman in an enclosure. Editor: Yes, and if we look closely, it seems this entire page exists as another boundary—it's clearly a page pulled from a sketchbook. Beckmann seems preoccupied with making art _out_ of the very tools and materials used to initially record it: line, form, texture, the paper itself. I think his choice to render this figure solely in a skeletal form gives precedence to his choice of process over detail. It's all just right in your face. Curator: Exactly, Beckmann and many of his Expressionist colleagues faced intense scrutiny, not only by critics who felt the works to be unfinished, but due to socio-political circumstances regarding art, culture and freedom. By using these types of raw strokes and depictions, he was critiquing conventional portraiture, which was very provocative. Editor: And I think we cannot avoid mentioning the headscarf in terms of materiality and context. Not just a covering, but also a marker. In these postwar drawings, its an interesting cultural phenomenon because it conceals, perhaps marks someone who’s been displaced by war, in addition to representing so much more for the person adorned in such manner. Curator: Absolutely. Ultimately this simple drawing encapsulates a really interesting tension between artistic expression, socio-political commentary, and personal experience. Editor: It seems so ordinary, but those marks alone make this a window to another place, another process, another way of thinking about making and about marking identity through making. It has an emotional weight despite its simplicity.