Max Pechstein
Hermann Max Pechstein (* December 31, 1881 in Zwickau; † June 29, 1955 in West Berlin) was an important German painter, graphic artist and at times a member of the artists' association "Brücke". Pechstein was a representative of German Expressionism.
Max Pechstein's artistic talent was recognized and encouraged at an early age. His conventional career, first as an apprentice to a master painter in Zwickau, then at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts and finally at the academy there under the decorative painter Otto Gußmann, helped Pechstein to acquire solid craftsmanship.
When he painted a ceiling picture for the Dresden Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1906 in such an unconventional color scheme that the client had it muted by grey splashes, Pechstein came to the attention of Erich Heckel, who eventually brought him into the artists' association 'Die Brücke', founded a year earlier, which had set itself the goal of painting that was opposed to Impressionism and came from the power of color and wanted to "draw all revolutionary and fermenting forces to itself [...]" (Schmidt-Rottluff). Pechstein's Expressionist style now developed further in the environment of the 'Brücke' members, whereby his aim was to work out the core motif with a well-dosed use of painterly means.
Pechstein settled in Berlin in 1908, where he became a co-founder of the New Secession. He created figure paintings, still lifes and landscapes in a moderate expressionist style, which led to the artist's early and long-lasting success. In 1937 he was defamed as a 'degenerate artist'. From 1945, Pechstein taught at the Berlin Academy of Arts. In addition to painting, he created a graphic oeuvre with more than 850 woodcuts, lithographs and etchings.