Max Pechstein Quotes

Hermann Max Pechstein was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of the Die Brücke group. Wikipedia  

✵ 31. December 1881 – 29. June 1955
Max Pechstein photo
Max Pechstein: 14   quotes 0   likes

Famous Max Pechstein Quotes

“It was and still is fundamental: to begin the work with the same tools with which it will be ended, without making a preliminary drawing. on the wood, stone, or metal. Sketches and drawings done in advance clarify the intention, and with it ready in the head, the requisite tool realizes the idea.”

Buchheim, Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke, p. 304; as quoted in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 54

“In 1907 I was most strongly influenced by Giotto during my first Italian trip, as well as by Etruscan sculpture and the early Etruscan landscape painting in the Vatican library in Rome.”

In his letter in 1920, to de:Georg Biermann; as quoted in Georg Biermann - Max Pechstein, Leipzig 1920, p. 14
Pechstein answers Biermann's question: 'which 'primitives' had influenced him in his early painting style'

“We desire to achieve to the socialist republic not only the recovery of the conditions of art, but also the beginning of a unified artistic area for our time.”

As quoted in German Expressionist Painting, Peter Selz, University of California Press, 1974, p. 313
Pechstein and others initiated in Nov. 1918 in Berlin the Novembergruppe, a socialist artist-group, competing then with Die Brücke

“What a variety of shapes exists in the lithograph when one prepares the stone for printing, etches it, and prints oneself. Above all, one must do the printing oneself!”

quote, c. 1920; in Buchheim, Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke, p. 303; as cited in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, pp. 40-41

Max Pechstein Quotes about art

“I would like to express my longing for happy experiences. I do not want us to be for ever regretting. Art has been and remains the part of my life that brings me happiness.”

as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 89

“We [the artists of Die Brücke ] were overjoyed to discover our complete unison in the urge for liberation, for an art surging forward, unrestricted by convention.”

from a note of Pechstein; as quoted in Expressionism, a German Intuition, 1905-1920, [exhibition-catalogue 1980-81]; Paul Vogt, Horts Keller, Martin Urban, Wolf-Dieter Dube, and Eberhard Roters; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1980, p. 5

Max Pechstein Quotes

“Contented sleep releases the limbs. We await full moon. Await the dance!”

4 short quotes of Max Pechstein, 1918, in Aus dem Palau-Tagebuch, 'Das Kunstblatt' 2, no. 6, p. 179; as cited in 'The Revival of Printmaking in Germany', I. K. Rigby; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 43

“.. the unrelenting Berlin forced each one of us to struggle through on the most individual paths, so that our communal living [of 'Brücke', in 1913] fell apart. In addition, the knowledge of the individual members had developed so far that the individual form differed, although the overall goal of the group remained the same.”

a later quote of Pechstein; as quoted in Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, ed. Anita Beloubek-Hammer; Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 266 (transl. Claire Albiez)
about the cause of the break-up of Die Brücke group in 1913: the harsh city-life of Berlin. Pechstein himself already was removed from the Brücke group in 1912 (one year before the definite break) because he went against the self-imposed rule of die Brücke to only exhibit together - when he decided to show also his art at the 'Berliner Secession'.

“Now I drew as wildly during my tramps [during his walks through the Saxonian countryside] as I has fought before.”

in his early youth
As quoted in German Expressionist Painting, Peter Selz, University of California Press, 1974, p. 90

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