Nazi-era self-portrait sells for record sum to Swiss buyer

Beckmann by Beckmann: the self-portrait from 1943. Keystone / Britta Pedersen

A self-portrait painted by artist Max Beckmann during the Second World War after he fled Nazi Germany sold for €23.2 million (CHF24.79 million) on Thursday in Berlin.

Auction house Villa Grisebach said it had estimated that “Self-portrait in yellow-pink”, painted in 1943, would attract bids of between €20 million and €30 million. The final price represents a new record for a painting auction in Germany.

Beckmann (1884-1950), widely viewed as a major modern artist of the last century, painted the self-portrait while in exile in Amsterdam.

After the Nazis branded his paintings “degenerate art”, Beckmann and his wife, Mathilde, fled Germany in 1937. Waiting in Amsterdam for years for a visa to the United States, Beckmann worked under adverse circumstances.

The auction house has said there are no questions over the artwork’s provenance, as the artist gave it to his wife, who loved it so much she kept it until she died in 1986.

Swiss collectors

Eventually a private collection in Switzerland purchased the painting before entrusting it to Villa Grisebach.

A spokesperson for Grisebach said the successful bid, also from Switzerland, was €20 million and the remainder of the price covered fees. There had been competition from five countries.

Auctioneers hope the sale, which Grisebach said was the second-highest price fetched globally for an artist’s self-portrait, will boost Germany’s art market, which trails New York, London and Paris.

In 2018 Villa Grisebach obtained the highest auction price to date for a painting in Germany when it sold Beckmann’s “The Egyptian” for €5.5 million.