At the end of his schooling, Max Beckmann fought against his family's resistance to become a painter. He was educated as an artist from 1900 to 1903 at the 'Großherzogliche Kunstschule' in Weimar, where he mainly studied under the Norwegian landscape painter Carl Frithjof Smith. After his graduation and several sojourns to Paris, Geneva and Florence, Beckmann moved to Berlin in 1907, where he became a member of the local Secession. When the war broke out, Max Beckmann volunteered as a professional soldier and was sent to East Prussia and Flanders. When he left the military in 1915, he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he taught at the 'Städel-Kunstschule' until 1933. Due to the increasing power of the Nazis, the artist was exposed to increasing deffamations during this period, which culminated in his dismissal as a teacher and the removal of his works from public collections in Germany. Under the political pressure Beckmann emigrated to Holland in 1937, but here the political situation also resticted the painter. An offer to go to St. Louis as a visiting professor in 1947 was therefore a welcome opportunity to move to the USA. Subsequently, Max Beckmann taught at the School of Fine Arts of the Washington University from 1949, followed by a stint at the University of Colorado in Boulder and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York until he went to Mills College in Oakland, California in the summer of 1950. Max Beckmann died on December 27 of the same year in New York. Beckmann's early style was influenced by German Impressionists, mainly Lovis Corinth. Subsequently his experience of the war lead him to an expressionist style close to 'Neue Sachlichkeit' ('New Objectivity'). The individuality of his style was reflected in his intensive study of the reality of things since the 1920s, which formally lead to his expressive, graphic framework surrounding the form. His main theme are the lonely and threatened in an apocalyptical world. In his late work the pieces culminate in large, symbol-laden, mythological triptychs. He was awarded the Carnegie-Prize in 1929, the 1st Prize from the international exhibition 'Golden Gate' in 1939 and the Conte-Volpi-Price from the XXV Venice Biennale in 1950. Furthermore Max Beckmann received an honorary doctorate from the Washington University, St. Louis in 1950.