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BRONISLAVA ROKYTOVÁ MUSEUM OF CzECH LITERATURE, pRAGUE

The Prague Intermezzo of the Painter and Photographer Hannes Beckmann (1934–1948)Dessau — Prague — New York*

Until now little was known about the activities of Hannes Beckmann in Czechoslovakia. A painter and photogra-pher, but also a set designer and a theorist in these fields, Beckmann was born on 8 October 1909 in Stuttgart. In 1928–1932 he studied under Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Josef Albers at the Bauhaus in Dessau, and then took courses in photography in Vienna. In 1934, for political reasons, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia, where his wife came from. He spent almost fifteen years there. He died on 19 July 1977 in the United States of America, where he finally managed to emigrate to with his family three years after the end of the Second World War.1

Surprisingly, Hannes Beckmann is not particularly well known even in specialist circles concentrating on the Bauhaus. He can be classified alongside artists such as Grete Marx2 (also a Bauhaus graduate), whose work remained overshadowed by that of other artists whose modernist concepts made them iconic figures in art history. Even after the anti-linear proclamations of postmodernity, Beckmann’s name has not become more widely known, as can be seen from the largest exhibition and publication project on the Bauhaus in 2010,3 where we search in vain for Beckmann (or for Marx). This is in spite of the fact that Wassily Kandinsky’s eva-luation of him at the end of his studies — to base ourselves on an indisputable authority — indicates that Beckmann’s work was not simply an unsuccessful experiment. The reason for this state of affairs is probably the inaccessibility of Beckmann’s works. The Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau is currently trying to make amends by including Beckmann’s works in its projects, even though it does not own any of them.4

The reasons for the lack of knowledge of Beckmann’s work while in Prague until now in Czech art history circles are slightly different. They are the

result of the problematic social events that affected Czechoslovakia after 1948. Art historians were forced to develop their interests in other directions, and in addition Hannes Beckmann was by then already living in New York, where he soon became head of the photography department in the Guggenheim Museum.

On first coming across the name of Hannes Beckmann5 it might easily be confused with that of the Expressionist Max Beckmann. Hannes Beckmann co-mmented on this evidently frequent error in a humorous way, as Michael Mosher mentions in a different context: ‘The painter and Dartmouth College art professor Hannes Beckmann (1909–1977) lamented that in Germany — a nation that revered the Expressionist painter Max Beckmann — his famous name made him feel as if he were named Jimmy Picasso.’6 Certain parallels in the lives of the two artists can be traced only in a few points. Both Hannes and Max eventually emigrated from Hitler’s Germany. The former went to Czechoslovakia while the latter found refuge with relatives in Holland. However, the spread of Nazism in Europe forced them to flee further, though this became increasingly difficult. Both of them finally received a visa to the United States of America only after the end of the Second World War. From that point on their fates were different, as their oeuvre had been from the beginning.

The aim of this study is not, and at the present time cannot be, either to process the material and information that has been discovered into a monograph or to attempt an overall evaluation of Beckmann’s oeuvre in the context of Czech and world art history. Presenting his life and work during the ten and more years he spent in Czechoslovakia is a more modest goal, but only to a certain extent. During this stage of his life, just as important as Beckmann’s work is its historical context. It reveals the schizophrenic behaviour of the young democratic

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republic in the difficult years of the 1930s, when refugees from Nazism encountered the buck-passing and bure-aucracy of the state officials, and the everyday ‘small’ dramas of heroism and cowardice. While this article follows the artist’s life journey from Dessau to Prague after the Bauhaus was closed down, the intermezzo in Czechoslovakia, and his first steps in postwar New York, it focuses primarily on the moments that are linked with his fate in Czechoslovakia and which at the same time help depict in a broader way the cultural, political, and social situation in the country in the years 1934–1948.

Reminiscences of the Bauhaus

For the reasons mentioned above I will not devote attenti-on to Beckmann’s work at the Bauhaus, but will primarily look for the Bauhaus roots of his work in Prague. Several fields can be delimited in which the Bauhaus influenced Hannes Beckmann — set design, photography and painting. It was at the Bauhaus, too, that Beckmann formed friendly contacts that lasted throughout his life. Beckmann’s teachers at the Bauhaus included leading figu-

res such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Josef Albers, which is of fundamental significance for the interpreta-tion of the experiments with photographic techniques and the paintings, tending towards geometrical abstract works, that he produced while in Czechoslovakia.

In the final assessment of Beckmann’s studies men-tioned earlier, Kandinsky emphasised his pupil’s marked talent as a painter, which manifested itself above all in the field of theatre scenography, in which in Kandinsky’s view Beckmann developed his imagination in a promising way.7 Beckmann’s set designs from Dessau have been preserved in David Hall’s private collection. It has not been possible to confirm whether he was also active in this field in practice in Czechoslovakia, but one of his published theoretical articles would seem to indicate this when it mentions in the introductory profile that the author devoted himself primarily to stage art in Prague.8 Beckmann was interested in linking the functional elements of scenery with its artistic expression, and he also considered the influence of the atmosphere in the auditorium to be of fundamental importance. He brought together his ideas on this in the article Bedeutung

1 / Hannes Beckmann, Untitled (Lens), ca. 1935Photograph on paper, 29.2 × 22.8 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: Hannes BeckmannDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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des Bühnenbildes [Importance of the Stage Set], published in the Prague journal Internationale Kunstrevue in 1937. He sent the text to Wassily Kandinsky, who at that time was already living in Paris, for his comments.9 From the correspondence between the two artists, kept today in the collections of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, we can see that a relationship not only of collegiality but of friendship developed between the two, which manifes-ted itself above all in the period after the Munich Diktat.10 In the article, Beckmann considers a stage set as being like an independent painting, whose qualities are influenced by the form and colour of the decorations and costumes and the power of the overall impression: ‘We look at a pain-ting as something finished in itself, complete, as an organism, well-balanced, internalised — as a creation brought to its highest expressive power. All these qualities should be found in a good stage set only to a certain precise degree. Anything more or less is too much.’11 It is interesting that the article is accompanied by the reproduction of a painting by the Czech-German artist Emil Orlik, which recorded the set for the theatre production of the play Oedipus, directed by Max Reinhardt in 1910. Incidentally, the set designer

Emil Pirchan, mentioned in the article, came from Brno. Here we can once again see the importance of the field of Czech-German art, which has been forgotten for many years, and which developed independently in the Czech lands at that time, but at the same time often formed close links with leading artistic centres elsewhere in the world.

Hannes Beckmann was fascinated by a certain scenic impression to be found in photographs and paintings. This can once again be attributed to his experiences from the Bauhaus, where Oskar Schlemmer had already had considerable influence as a teacher in the 1920s. Schlemmer designed many theatre sets and worked with photographs which he composed as a theatrical or circus setting. Although Beckmann did not study under Schlemmer, he created in his paintings a tension of rhy-thmic shapes positioned in a contradictory relation to the active movement of living beings or complicated the scene by the use of seemingly disparate objects. This type of arrangement is evident in two photographs accompanying Beckmann’s study Künstlerische Photographie [Artistic Photography],12 published in Prague in 1935 in one of Adolf Donath’s German artistic journals, Die Internationale

2 / Hannes Beckmann, Untitled (Plastic Fish in a Vase), ca. 1935Photograph on paper, 29.2 × 22.8 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: Hannes BeckmannDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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Kunstwelt.13 The first photograph, Künstler des Reifens [Artists of the Hoop], shows acrobats balancing on tall circus bicycles and juggling hoops. It is in fact an ordinary circus scene, devoid of any tension or danger. However, in the photograph Beckmann captured something more than a standard variety performance. He is fascinated by the geometrical white circles flying at different heights against a black background, contrasting with the vertical lines formed by the long seatposts of the circus bikes. The figures of the acrobats have become puppets frozen in suspended motion, reaching out for an unattainable circle symbolising a sense of balance and stability. The second photograph, Photographisches Spielzeug [Photographic Toy], is based on a similar principle. An undulating horizontal line is intersected by straight lines ending in fixed points. In reality these are simply decorative pins with a glass head stuck into illuminated corrugated paper. The elements of the composition have precisely demarcated relations. However, these are rendered uncertain not only by the difficulty of recognising the objects, but also by the addition of the glass figure of a ‘piglet’ and a further bizarre object made up of regular shapes. The

whole thing gives the impression of a comic theatre scene. Nothing is what it seems; our vision is uncertain.

Among Beckmann’s arranged photographs can be included Plastic Fish in a Vase from the year 1935,14 from which formal duality and geometricality have now disappeared. The photograph has its own world and has definitively parted company with mimetic artistic devices; our rationality is under attack. In this context it is necessary to mention another Bauhaus professor, László Moholy-Nagy. Hannes Beckmann did not come into direct contact with him at the Bauhaus, just as he missed Oskar Schlemmer, because the first course in photography did not take place until the year after Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus. Nevertheless, his personality attracted the attention of the students and many of them continued in his footsteps with original photographic experiments. His New Vision built up a New World using scientific, physical, and chemical instruments. It was intended to bring about a shift in human consciousness through the impact of geometrical shapes or intangible perspectives with the use of interdisciplinary research. The radical changes in the way photography was perceived culminated

3/ Hannes Beckmann, Untitled, ca. 1935Photograph on paper (solarisation, double negative), 28 × 22 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: Hannes BeckmannDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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in the famous exhibition Film und Photo, held by the Deutscher Werkbund in Stuttgart in 1929. At that time a course in experimental photography was included in the Bauhaus curriculum, which subsequently influenced Beckmann’s photographic work, in which he received further schooling in Vienna, and which provided him with modest opportunities for work in Prague.

Hannes Beckmann combined geometrical shapes with organic elements in his paintings, too. Here the influence of both Wassily Kandinsky and of Paul Klee can be seen. In this connection it is interesting to note that the article Künstlerische Photographie was accompanied by a reproduction of a photographic portrait of Wassily Kandinsky by Beckmann. Once again Beckmann sent the photograph and the journal to Kandinsky and in reply he received praise both for the portrait and for the quality of the reproduction.15 From the letters and other archive materials we know that Beckmann and his wife visited Wassily Kandinsky in Paris in the summer of 1935, from where they returned to their new home in Czechoslovakia. We can only speculate whether they considered together the possibility of the Beckmanns moving to Paris and whether that was the main reason for their visit. Kandinsky’s later interest in the situation of the whole family in Prague would seem

to hint at this. However, apart from a few snippets of information, no more is known of their meeting. They continued to correspond up until the fateful events in Czechoslovakia in 1939. They discussed both art and the politics that influenced the lives of the former teachers and students at the Bauhaus. In the same collection of the Getty Institute have been preserved not only the letters Beckmann received from Wassily Kandinsky, but also Beckmann’s drawings, colour diagrams , and notes from the courses given by Paul Klee. Beckmann must have taken them with him from Dessau to Prague and then to New York after the war. The importance he attributed to these two teachers thus becomes more evident.

Hannes Beckmann’s reflections on the mutual influence of colours and shapes, the tactile and visual differentiation of materials, and their practical use, were based primarily on the courses given by Josef Albers, who made the search for new potential in materials a priority. With the help of contradictory, mutually exclusive perceptions he attacked the previously accepted ways of observing things. Later, in his article Formative Years, Beckmann recalled one of Albers’ practical exercises, in which the students had to explore the potential of paper: ‘I remember vividly the first day of the [Preliminary Course]. Josef Albers entered the room, carrying with him a bunch of

4 / Hannes Beckmann, Untitled (Abstract Photographic Work), 1935Photograph on paper, 17.2 × 22.8 cm, signed at the bottom: Prag 1935 Hannes BeckmannDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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newspapers. … [and] then addressed us … ‘Ladies and gentle-men, we are poor, not rich. We can’t afford to waste materials or time. … All art starts with a material, and therefore we have first to investigate what our material can do. So, at the beginning we will experiment without aiming at making a product. At the moment we prefer cleverness to beauty. … Our studies should lead to constructive thinking. … I want you now to take the newspapers … and try to make something out of them that is more than you have now. I want you to respect the material and use it in a way that makes sense — preserve its inherent characteristics. If you can do without tools like knives and scissors, and without glue, [all] the better.’’16 Josef Albers was a major inspiration for Beckmann in his orientation towards op-art when he was in the United States. This can be seen from his photographic portrait of Albers17 or the correspondence between them from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. This was not simply polite communication. In one letter, for example, Albers made some critical comments on Beckmann’s theory of colour.18 The painting Silent Center (Homage to Josef Albers), dating from 1970, is a tribute to the teacher and his geometrical abstract work with its strict squares. Albers cannot be said to have influenced those works by Beckmann in

his Prague period that have survived. Optical games remained for the moment out of his sphere of interest.

The Prague Years

It is not possible to explain Beckmann’s Prague intermezzo without looking at the contemporary political context, which classified him among the anti-Nazi refugees. The decisions which led them to emigrate always arose out of similar life experiences. The fear of persecution because of their political convictions or racial origin was among the most important ones. Artistic freedom was also threatened. The Bauhaus was entering its final difficult stage, when Adolf Hitler was winning over voters with his vision of a ‘great’ Germany. The first signs of problems caused the school to move from Weimar to the industrial town of Dessau, where Hannes Beckmann started study-ing. The weakened Weimar Republic was affected by the world economic crisis and conflicts between the political parties. The Bauhaus underwent a reorganisation. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who took over the leadership of the school in 1932, decided to move it to Berlin, believing that by so doing he would protect it from the pressure

5 / Hannes Beckmann, Ruine (Ruin), 1935Oil on canvas, 35.5 × 40 cm, unsignedDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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of further political changes. But it was merely a vain attempt to escape from the rise of Nazism. The following year the Bauhaus was closed down as being a dangerous breeding-ground of Jews and Bolshevism. This was one of the first repressive measures taken by the new regime against the representatives of modern art. However, the struggle for existence of the Berlin Bauhaus was observed by Hannes Beckmann from Vienna, where he had already emigrated with his future wife. Together they attended courses in photography there at the artistic academy Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (Bundesanstalt).19 At this stage they had not been forced to flee from Nazism, but nevertheless they can be shown to have spent a short period in Czechoslovakia in 1932. For in June of this year Hannes Beckmann married Matilda Wiener, who came from a Prague Jewish family.20 Her father Georg Wiener was the principal director of the Schöller sugar refineries21 and became an important patron of the young couple. The newlyweds came to visit Matilda’s family in Prague and stayed in the Imperial Hotel in Na Poříčí street until the beginning of September.22 Paradoxically, soon after this the hotel started to serve the needs of refugees.

When they returned to Vienna, the policy of the

Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss became more radi-cal, allegedly so as to define a position that was opposed to the growing influence of Nazism. The Austrian Chancellor, who became unpopular because of the measures he took, was afraid the Nazi party would win the elections and decided to ban it. The subsequent attempt at a coup by the Austrian Nazis was unsuccessful, in spite of the assassi-nation of Dollfuss. Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich, and Austria continually tried to counter the growing pressure from Germany. But according to the ‘leadership principle’ a Greater German Reich was supposed to be constructed, uniting all Germans. It was not long before racial persecution made its appearance, and the threat of this was certainly the most important reason why the Beckmanns moved to Czechoslovakia, which was still relatively free, in the summer of 1934. They found lodging in the Na Slupi boarding house.23

Here they seem to have lived in peace, but in make-shift conditions, supported by Matilda’s father. No works by Hannes Beckmann have been found from this period. But records exist testifying to his artistic activity. For photography proved to be not only his fate as a profession, but fateful in other ways, too. Because of it, he and his

6/ Hannes Beckmann, Procesí (Procession ), 1935(Procesí: SVU Mánes, Praha, 1936. Procession: Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York, 1949.)Oil on canvas, 23 × 34 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: h. b. 35David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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wife were arrested for suspected espionage.24 They had been in Czechoslovakia for more than a year when they were arrested together in August 1935 under suspicion of subversive activity when photographing the Žatec Gate in Louny. The report for the Police Headquarters in Prague states that the citizen of the German Reich, ‘Hanuš Beckmann, had in his possession a ‘Leica’25 camera of the latest model with special lenses, worth about 8 000 crowns.’26 In the record of their interrogation it is further stated that in the summer they travelled by train to Vienna, Zurich, and Paris.27 After their return they stayed until the end of August in the ‘small villa’ of Matilda’s father in Doksy,28 from where they left for Prague to visit Georg Wiener and to look at a new apartment in Italská street in the Vinohrady district of Prague. From Prague they travelled to Kadaň, Chomutov, Karlovy Vary, and back to Prague via Most29 and Louny. The couple stated that they undertook the journey in order to photograph historical monuments and that they intended either to sell the photographs or of-fer them to the periodical Prager Presse.30 This is why they

photographed the church in Louny and the Žatec Gate. Unfortunately, as is clear from the interrogation, this was before the final army training in the manoeuvres area. The archive material shows that they were obliged to speak about personal matters: ‘Beckmann stated that his wife was Jewish and that because of this he could not return to Germany with her.’ Their films were confiscated, developed, and submitted to the intelligence officer, who did not find any-thing untoward in them. The films and the camera were not returned to Beckmann until he had requested this several times from the relevant authorities, even though this was long after reports had been drawn up indicating that there was no evidence of subversive activity on their part.31 Even after this incident Hannes Beckmann conti-nued to take photographs. He chose traditional subjects, such as Prague Castle, evidently taken from the parapet on Charles Bridge, or life in the Prague suburbs with houses with outside galleries in the yards. At the same time he experimented with solarisation, deliberate over-exposure, and heightened contrast of the image or double negatives,

7 / Hannes Beckmann, Kosmos (Cosmos), 1936(Kosmos: SVU Mánes, Praha, 1936.)Photograph of a missing work, signed at the bottom by Hannes Beckmann: Kosmos 1936David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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8 / Hannes Beckmann, Pod vodou (Underwater), 1935(Pod vodou: SVU Mánes, Praha, 1936.)Oil on canvas, 49.5 × 35.5 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: h. b. 35David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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especially in photographs of modern Prague architecture and completely abstract graphic photo work.32 We know little about Beckmann’s contacts with Czech avant-garde photographers. In the mid-1930s he worked in Karel Stehlík’s studio, but whether any of his photographs were produced there cannot be proved.33 We can only assume that he may have met the photographer Josef Ehm there, although from 1934 onward the latter taught at the State School of Graphic Art, where the ‘New Vision’ tendency and the Bauhaus methodology assumed greater promi-nence with the appointment of Jaromír Funke. Similar things can be said about the photographic work done by Beckmann in Czechoslovakia. In view of the contacts that the artists in exile maintained among themselves,34 it is certainly interesting that Josef Ehm translated articles by Raoul Hausmann for Czech photography periodicals35, and may have acted as a possible link between Beckmann and the Mánes Union of Fine Arts. Josef Ehm participated in the International Photography Exhibition, which was held in the Mánes Gallery in the same year as the exhibition where Hannes Beckmann presented his paintings, as

will be revealed later. Beckmann certainly followed current trends in avant-garde photography, although any assertion about the influence of the Czech milieu on his work would, based on the available information, be purely speculative. Among other things, Beckmann photogra-phed the works of Marc Chagall which accompanied an article by Heinz Politzer. This type of reproduction work was evidently one of the ways he made a living in Prague.36

It remains a matter of conjecture whether there was any connection between the arrest in Louny and the fact that, once the misunderstanding had been cleared up, Hannes Beckmann registered with the Jewish Relief Committee in Prague and subsequently signed the Directive for Refugees.37 The model for immigration policy in Czechoslovak started to follow an automatized, depersonalised course in direct proportion to the increasing number of refugees. Like the others, Beckmann signed a declaration, according to which he had to refrain from any form of political activity, could not take up employment, and had to register regularly at the competent offices. ‘Let no refugee forget that he

9 / Hannes Beckmann, Utopia (Atom Factory), 1937Oil on canvas, 48 × 68.5 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: h. b. 37David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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is a guest of the Czechoslovak Republic!’38 This phrase was included in the record of the statement in which Beckmann confirmed that he was apolitical and that he had never been imprisoned for his political activities. As the main reason for his emigration he gave the Nazi laws, according to which he ‘had committed the crime of racial shame, for, being of Aryan origin, he had married a Jewish wife. He had to leave Germany because of persecution.’39

Events abroad did not augur well, and the inhabitants of Czechoslovakia started to get used to them, the result of which was a slackening in the help for refugees who came to Czechoslovakia. Although the year 1935 was a difficult one for Beckmann, he created a number of interesting works. In the Beckmann family album a series of photographs has been preserved with the overall title Hannes malt [Hannes paints].40 The seven small square photographs depict the Beckmanns’ stay in Georg Wiener’s villa in Doksy. This is confirmed by a torn note written in pencil in the upper part of the cardboard mounting — ‘Hirschberg, Juli 35’. The photographs captured the peaceful life in the small town and Hannes Beckmann at work. On one of them is a shot of a doorstep, with two new paintings hung above it. On closer inspection the works can be identified as Organismus [Organism]41 and Procesí [Procession].

The former portrays a somewhat Kleeian creature, reminiscent of a bird with a human face, in a cloud landscape with a low horizon. An organism, in other

words a living being, reacting to the external stimuli of the environment and capable of existence. The Greek órganon means not only sensory organ, but also instrument. A creature composed of geometrical or irregular shapes. A similarly complicated amorphous structure is presented by the painting Ruine [Ruin]. Disparate forms blend into each other and swallow each other, fading away in the course of time. The form of a circle, target, sun, or planet appears on many other paintings by Beckmann.42 A dark red circle is an important motif in Procession, another work that was painted in the villa in Doksy. It illuminates figures composed of triangles of different colours, creating a simple compositional rhythm, although they are linked to one another by almost imperceptible lines. The painting is seemingly purely geometrical, but once again its basic scene is disturbed by irregular shapes. It was exhibited under the title Procesí, together with seven other works by Beckmann, at an exhibition held by the Mánes Union of Fine Arts. The Mánes Union, which was cosmopolitan in outlook, unambiguously expressed its support for the immigrants right up to the occupation of Czechoslovakia, in spite of all the political interventions, which were sparked off, for example, by the International Cartoon Exhibition in 1934.43 The artists whose works were exhibited there, many of whom were anti-Nazi refugees, courageously drew attention to the threat of dictatorial regimes, and the Mánes Union later resolutely defended the freedom of artistic expression in the face of pressure

10 / Hannes Beckmann, Barokní zahrada (Baroque Garden), 1940Watercolour and gouache on paper, 25.5 × 47 cm, unsignedDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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for works with these themes to be removed from the exhibition. It is therefore not surprising that the Mánes Union selected the work of Hannes Beckmann for the First Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists, which was held on 5–27 February 1936. The application forms of all artists who applied to take part in the exhibition have been preserved in the archives of the Mánes Union, together with a list of their works and information about their selling price, and the dates the works were handed over to the Mánes Union, sold, or given back. According to his application form, Beckmann proposed to exhibit, in addition to Procesí, the paintings Pod vodou [Under Water], Kosmos [Cosmos], Mešita [Mosque], Nocturno [Nocturne], Maestoso, Sedmičlenná rodina [Seven-Member Family], and Slavnostní veselí [Merry Celebration].44 Eventually the oil paintings Maestoso and Mosque were not selected for the exhibition. Merry Celebration seems, judging from the identical price in the application form and the accompanying document for the exhibition, to have simply been designated by the title Obraz [Painting].45 The opening speech for the exhibition, which has been preserved in typescript form, explains that the aim of holding it was ‘firstly to make it possible for particularly younger and so far unknown or little known artists, who are so far not organised in any artistic association, to exhibit their works; and secondly to discover new talents, who have so far been prevented by shyness or excessive self--criticism from exhibiting at one of our exhibitions… An appeal in the newspapers for so many artists to apply to take part in this exhibition that the Mánes committee, to whose judgement they would have to submit, would be able to apply much stricter selection standards than had originally been planned. And so — I emphasise, after a stricter selection procedure than an-

ticipated — nearly thirty artists here present, most of them for the first time, work of a remarkable standard and interest…’46 According to the list of applicants, forty-seven artists were interested in exhibiting. The accompanying documents issued at the exhibition show that eventually only twenty artists were chosen from the list of applicants, together with whom ten other artists exhibited their work, who do not appear on the internal list of applicants.47 The method by which they were selected is not clear from the sources.

The sculptor Ladislav Zívr recalled how the Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists did not meet the ex-pectations of Karel Teige, who evaluated positively only the Dalíesque surrealism of Václav Zykmund, represented, to his regret, by only one painting, Bludný Holanďan, naslou-chající hře na housle [The Flying Dutchman, Listening to Violin Music].48 However, Teige’s review of the exhibition pub-lished in Rudé právo on 15 February 1936 shows that another artist also caught his attention. ‘Among the participants at the Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists Hannes Beckmann, too, is an adherent of surrealism. He exhibits several small paintings, evidently painted under the influence of Paul Klee and Joan Miró. V.[áclav] Zikmund and Hannes Beckmann are definitely among the most interesting, most promising, and, in terms of expression, most radical painters at this exhibition.’49 The other artists really did not interest Teige very much, and he even assessed some of their works as eclectic to the point of being banal, with conventional themes. ‘That is about all. Thirty names — of which only a few are names that at present promise much in the future. The exhibition as a whole did not satisfy expectations and hopes that were eager for the arrival of new artistic forces. At all events, however, we have every right to be confident that at least two names from this exhibition, Václav Zykmund and Hannes Beckmann, will become names that we will encounter in the ranks of the revolutionary artistic avant-garde and the left wing.’ This is how Karel Teige concluded his article, and his assessment of Beckmann’s work in it was more than favourable.50

It has been possible to trace four of the eight works exhibited by Hannes Beckmann. Three of them, Procession, Cosmos, and Nocturne, are expressed in the form of geome-trical abstractions. We can therefore assume that the other works were also based on the same principle. This can be considered to be the logical outcome of Beckmann’s experi-ences at the Bauhaus, under the influence of the distinctive figures of Wassily Kandinsky or Paul Klee. The last of the exhibited works that is known of today, Under Water, follows the tradition of Beckmann’s landscapes and organic compositions made up of signs and shapes permeating into each other, geometrically regular or distorted into complicated forms, likewise influenced by Klee or with an

11 / Hannes Beckmann, Neptun (Neptune, Large Füstenberg Garden in Prague), ca. 1935Photograph on paper, 22.8 × 20 cm, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: Hannes BeckmannDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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affinity to the Miró type of surrealism. At this stage it is not possible to say to what extent Beckmann was familiar with Czech abstractionism or surrealism, after a stay in the country of only a year and a half.51 If we take into account his op-art work after he left Czechoslovakia, we can perhaps interpret his surrealism more as a dreamy inspiration by means of Gestalt psychology52 in the sense of a search for the mutual influence of the individual visual parts, which through their arrangement activate together our experience and perceptions. They lead us to the deduction of the resulting shape, Gestalt, and through a certain position, colouring, and the way they blend into each other they creatively shape in the mind a particular relationship — the drowned moon is swallowed up by phosphorescent marine organisms living under water.

The exhibition was evidently Hannes Beckmann’s first significant insight into the Czech fine art scene. Only one of the other artists who took part in the exhibition, Bohdan Heřmanský, can be said with any certainty to have established friendly relations with Beckmann. As we shall see, their friendship can be shown to have continued after the end of the war.

In the second half of the 1930s it became clear that the political situation in Germany would not improve. On the contrary, the Nazist and fascist regimes selected more and more victims. Hannes Beckmann in Prague and Wassily Kandinsky in Paris again commented on the difficult conditions of these years in exile in their correspondence, from which it is clear that Beckmann was aware of the danger that threatened, and thought about emigrating to the United States of America.53 First of all, starting at the end of 1936, he applied for Czechoslovak citizenship. He was able to acquire right of abode in the town of Most, and on that basis he did in fact become a Czechoslovak citizen on 2 February 1938, swearing the oath of citizenship fourteen days later.54 Any other conne-ction between Beckmann and the town of Most, however, cannot be confirmed. The Beckmanns do not figure in any municipal records there, and we know nothing today of any exhibitions or other activities by him in local cultural societies.55 Up to this point we could talk about the standard procedure leading to acquiring citizenship, including records examining his political activity in the past and his knowledge of the state language. Thanks to this we know that Hannes Beckmann learned Czech. A different problem, however, was faced by his wife, who by contrast had lost her Czechoslovak citizenship by marrying him.56 The events that then followed are already devoid of any rational basis.57 The utopia of society was omnipresent, as Beckmann intuitively grasped in his work entitled Atom-Fabric from the year 1937. Although the Beckmanns attempted to obtain the necessary documents for emigration to the United States of America, it was already too late. Even Wassily Kandinsky was unable to find in time people who would be able to act as guarantors for the Beckmanns in America, which was an essential condition for them to be able to emigrate. The refugee

policy in Czechoslovakia changed radically during the year 1938, and it became increasingly difficult to leave the country. Things came to a head with the Munich Diktat, which ceded the Sudeten lands to Germany, and the subsequent occupation of the remaining parts of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. Matilda Beckmann’s appli-cation for a review of her citizenship in the autumn of that year makes it clear that Hannes Beckmann had automatically become a citizen of the German Reich once more, because that had been the case until 1938.58 The new decree applied not only to all Germans and members of mixed families on the territory of the Protectorate, but was also imposed on political refugees, unless they were Jews. This measure was a policy aimed against the basic rights of citizens of the former Czechoslovak Republic.59

It is difficult to imagine how it was possible to live and work in such uncertainty. In spite of this, Hannes Beckmann’s continuing interest in Czech historical monuments60 is noticeable even in this period in his painting Barokní zahrada [Baroque Garden], reminiscent of his scenographic work at the Bauhaus. This time, however, the work is more complex than his intimate designs for theatre sets, and better characterises the complicated Baroque style typical for Prague. In the 1940s, according to archive material, Beckmann no longer photographed, but the older photographs that he created in Prague may have served him as inspiration. On one of them is the Large Füstenberg Garden, re-laid out in the Baroque style, with a fountain and a statue of Neptune, and the vineyards of the palace gardens rising in terraces behind them.61

After a further review of all the circumstances the authorities informed Hannes Beckmann in January 1944 that he could no longer be considered a German citizen and had lost his German nationality.62 In the summer he had to go to a penal camp in Bystřice near Benešov, to a ‘Sonderlager für Jüdische Mischlinge und versiebte Arier in Bystritz bei Beneschau’, that is, a ‘camp for mixed-race Jews and degenerate Aryans’. Beckmann, who was guilty of ‘besmirching his race’ through a marriage to a woman of Jewish origin, found himself in an establishment for rou-ghly 1200 prisoners, where he lived in one of the wooden huts like cowsheds, surrounded by barbed wire.63 It is said that experiments were carried out on the prisoners here using artificial fats or DDT, but not many escapes took place, because everyone was aware that this place was still not as bad as what it was like elsewhere.64 Testimony to this could be found, for example, in the horrific experien-ce of Beckmann’s wife, who was transferred at the same time to the Ghetto in Terezín, and whose parents Georg and Valerie Wiener committed suicide before they were due to be transported to a concentration camp in Poland. The Beckmanns’ son Thomas died during a bombing raid on Prague on 14 February 1945.65 He was staying with relatives while waiting for the return of his parents.66

After Hannes Beckmann returned to Prague from the ‘remedial’ establishment at the end of the war, he created a collage with a large blue swastika, to which

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a caricature of Adolf Hitler in the form of a giant ear has pinned a butterfly — once free, now forever marked — as a new piece in his collection. Underneath this scene is written in Czech Udavač [Informer]. Whether this refers to a specific incident remains unknown.

Czechoslovak Citizen — New York

‘From the documents that have been found the Revolutionary Committee is making available for the Ministry of the Interior to examine a list of persons who applied for German citizen-ship, since these documents are important at the present time, when it is necessary to exclude from the ranks of our citizens all collaborators and traitors.’ This is the introduction to the document dated May 1945, attached to which was a list of persons who were supposed to have declared themselves to be Germans. Among them was the name of ‘Hanuš Beckmann’.67 The war had deformed humanity into the paranoid aggression of the victors over the vanquished, but it was not entirely clear who was actually who. The conditions under which these lists of German citizens came into being had now been forgotten. Hannes Beckmann had to struggle to acquire Czechoslovak citi-zenship once again, and in addition he had to demonstrate his ‘national trustworthiness’.68 In order to confirm his loyalty to Czechoslovakia, he had to submit a declaration

signed by friends, colleagues, and neighbours from the house in Italská street in Vinohrady where he had lived — the photographer Hanuš Frankl, the Director of the State Film Archive Jindřich Brichta, the artists Bohdan Heřmanský and Karel Adler, and the art historian Vojtěch Volavka. Beckmann had got to know Volavka in the penal camp in Bystřice, as the latter’s wife Hana Volavková was also Jewish. All of them vouched for Beckmann’s anti-fas-cist convictions. In many cases their testimony contained information about Beckmann’s life and about the man himself. The actor, theatre producer, and set designer Déda (Zdeněk) Papež stated that they had got to know one another as colleagues in Karel Stehlík’s studio. Bohdan Heřmanský mentioned the Mánes exhibition, where his Czech colleagues had considered Beckmann’s work to be excellent. Hanuš Frankl described how Hannes Beckmann had helped him to save his photographic equipment when he was afraid it would be confiscated because of his Jewish origin. Beckmann had formally purchased the equipment from him and returned it to him in its original condition before he left for the labour camp in Bystřice.69 The authorities once again assessed the human actions and compared them with the articles in the new laws.

On the basis of his proven anti-Nazi activity Hannes Beckmann was once again granted Czechoslovak citizenship.70 But this did nothing to change his decision to

12 / Hannes Beckmann Czechoslovakia, 1949Photographs from the exhibition European Painters, 18 January — 13 February 1949, Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New YorkDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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13 / Hannes Beckmann, Arrangement, 1936(Arrangement: Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York, 1949.)Oil on canvas, 40.5 × 30.5 cm, unsignedDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

emigrate to the United States of America. Two years later Beckmann, his wife (who had survived the Nazi intern-ment), and their daughter, born after the war, acquired permission to leave for America.71 Beckmann’s acceptance as a member of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists, which many artists from the Mánes Union of Fine Arts joined in 1948, was simply an epilogue to the relationship between Beckmann and the Czech artistic scene.72 The complexion of the ideas underlying the statutes of the new Union corresponded to the radical changes in Czechoslovakia, accommodating a new totalitarian ideology and promoting socialist realism in art. Beckmann’s decision to leave was the correct one: he would certainly not have been able to develop his abstract works in the direction of op-art in this country in the 1950s.

During Beckmann’s cooperation on creating the Solomon Guggenheim collection with Hilla Rebay, the echoes of his Prague intermezzo returned one more time. He presented his work under the title ‘Hannes Beckmann — Czechoslovakia’ at the European Painters exhibition at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York.73 According to the dates given for the works, more than half of them came from the difficult period that Beckmann spent in Czechoslovakia.74 Procession and Nocturne were now displayed in a very different setting than the intimate premises of the Mánes exhibition hall.

Hannes Beckmann, still representing Czechoslovakia, now presented other works that he had created there — Together (dating, like the previous two works, from 1935), Festive and Arrangement (1936), Attitude and Curved (1937), and Undulation (1938). His postwar works included Around the Square, Around the Circle, Ensemble, Calm, Movement, and Mechanical (1946). The remaining works dated from his student years at the Bauhaus in Dessau.

The abstract works of Hannes Beckmann, which he created during the years he spent in exile in Czechoslovakia, and which built on the legacy of Kandinsky, Klee, Albers, and others, did not have any continuators to the same extent and with the same clear viewpoint in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. In the following years only some isolated abstract works appeared in the oeuvre of several different artists. While the collection of Beckmann’s works exhibited in New York marked the end of his Czech phase, this continued as a kind of periphrasis in new works, in which the influence of Albers and the trend towards op-art finally prevailed. Although the life and work of Hannes Beckmann were not properly appreciated during his lifetime, they can now make a contribution to a new reflection on culture in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period.

TRANSLATEd BY pETER STEpHENS

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14 / Hannes Beckmann, Undulation, 1938(Undulation: Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York, 1949.)Oil on canvas, 45.5 × 29 cm, unsignedDavid Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley, USAPhoto: David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley

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notes

* This study came into being as part of a monograph that is being prepared on Hannes Beckmann’s life and work. Due to the complete lack of literature on Beckmann’s life in Czechoslovakia, the article is based primarily on original archive materials in the National Archives in Prague, the Security Services Archive in Prague, the Prague City Archives, the State Regional Archive in Litoměřice, and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Although it was theoretically possible that some of Beckmann’s paintings or photographs might have been preserved in some holdings in Czech galleries and museums, I did not manage to discover anything. My thanks are due to the private collector and gallery owner David Hall in Wellsley, who willingly provided much information, archive material, and resources for the reproduction of works from his collection, to Markéta Svobodová from the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in Prague for valuable help in searching for sources in Czech archives, and also to Cathy Beckmann from New York for permission to publish her father’s work and for sharing personal memories. Without their help this article could not have been written.

1 Catalogues exist for exhibitions in the United States of America where Hannes Beckmann’s work was presented, for example The Responsive Eye (exh. cat.), The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1965, or Hannes Beckmann, Jan van der Marck, Steve Sherman, Hannes Beckmann: Paintings 1972–1975 (exh. cat.), Goethe Institute Atlanta 1978.

2 Grete Marx (1899–1990) and also Margarete Heymann studied ceramics at the Bauhaus in Weimar.

3 Barry Bergdoll — Leah Dickerman (eds), Bauhaus: Workshops for modernity, 1919–1933 (exh. cat.), The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2010. — He is not even mentioned, for example, in the publication Peter Hahn — Magdalena Droste — Jeannine Fiedler (eds), Experiment Bauhaus, Das Bauhaus-Archiv zu Gast im Bauhaus Dessau (exh. cat.), Bauhaus Dessau 1988.

4 The projects that present Bauhaus students include Das Bauhaus. Die Kunst der Schüler. Werke aus der Sammlung der Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Galerie der Stadt Remscheid, 20 October 2013 — 26 January 2014.

5 In the archive materials several variations of Beckmann’s Christian name can be found, including: Hans, Hannes, Hanuš, Jan, Johann, Johannes.

6 Michael R. Mosher, Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture (review), Leonardo Journal XXXVI, October 2003, no. 5, pp. 409–410, quoted from p. 409.

7 Certificate of the courses attended by Hannes Beckmann at the Bauhaus in Dessau, drawn up by Wassily Kandinsky, 1 July 1931, The Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Special collections, Los Angeles, col-lection Hannes Beckmann, 1909–1977, location number 890163*, folders 5–16.

8 Hannes Beckmann, Künstlerische Photographie, in: Adolf Donath (ed.), Die Internationale Kunstwelt: Monatschrift für Alte und Neue Kunst, Kunstmarkt und Sammeln, Buch, Autographen, Münzen, July 1935, pp. 112–116.

9 Letter from Wassily Kandinsky, 30 December 1937, The Getty Research Institute (see note 7).

10 Letters from Wassily Kandinsky to Hannes Beckmann in the years 1934–1939, ibidem. Their correspondence is examined in more detail in my article in the Archive section of this issue of Umění: „Lieber Herr Beckmann…“ Z dopisů Vasilije Kandinského Hannesu Beckmannovi do Prahy (1934–1939) [„Lieber Herr Beckmann…“ From Wassily Kandinsky’s letters to Hannes Beckmann in Prague (1934–1939)], pp. XX.

11 “Ein Bild betrachten wir als etwas in sich Fertiges, Abgeschlossenes, als einen Organismus, Wohlausgewogen, verinnerlicht, — als ein zu höchster Ausdruckskraft gesteigertes Gebilde. Alle diese Eigenschaften darf das gute Bühnenbild nur in bestimmten Masse besitzen. Jedes mehr oder weniger ist ein zuviel.” Hannes Beckmann, Bedeutung des Bühnenbildes, in: Adolf Donath (ed.), Die Internationale Kunstrewue: Monatschrift für Kunstfreunde und Sammler, January 1937, pp. 9–10, quoted from p. 9.

12 Beckmann (see note 8), quoted from p. 114.13 Adolf Donath (1876–1937) was a poet, journalist, art historian and

critic from Kroměříž. He worked with Wilhelm von Bode in Berlin in what is today the Bode-Museum. There he founded the artistic journals Der Kunstwandler and Jahrbuch für Kunstsammler, writing on Impressionism, Expressionism, and other contemporary modern trends. He was a friend of many artists including Max Liebermann. He espoused Zionist policies, for which the Nazis burned his books in 1933. After that he lived and worked in Prague until his death in 1937.

14 Insofar as it has been possible to ascertain them, the captions for the reproductions of Beckmann’s works include all the titles in different languages, and in some cases the different titles, by which the works are known today. Over the years Beckmann changed some titles. One example is Begegnung, of unknown date, oil painting, 32.5 × 41.9 cm, David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley. The painting can be shown to have been exhibited at the European Painters exhibition in New York in 1949 (see the photographs from the exhibition, the work in the central part, below on the right). On the basis of the dimensions of works given in the catalogue it is evidently either Festive, 1936, or Ensemble, 1946.

15 Letter from Wassily Kandinsky, 15 October 1935, The Getty Research Institute (see note 7).

16 Hannes Beckmann, Formative Years, in: Eckhard Neumann (ed.), Bauhaus and Bauhaus People, New York 1970, p. 302, quoted from p. 196.

17 Hannes Beckmann, Josef Albers, ca. 1948, photograph on paper, 24.4 × 19.8 cm, Harvard Art Museums / Busch-Reisinger Museum, location number BR52.7.

18 The Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Special collections, Los Angeles, collection Hannes Beckmann, 1909–1977, location number 890163*. The archive material contains correspondence with other people connected with the Bauhaus, for example letters to Herbert Bayer, Hannes Meyer, Ise Gropius, and to Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.

19 The graphical Educational and Experimental Insititute (Federal Institute) in Vienna. Taken from the certified Czech translation of Beckmann’s certificate of the outstanding quality of his work. The certificate was issued on 7 July 1934 in Vienna, the certified translation on 13 September 1934 in Prague, private archive of David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.

20 Hanuš Beckmann, card with records of his place of permanent abode, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II., Police Headquarters 1931–1940, location number 42/B-21/105.

21 The Schöller sugar refinery was founded by Baron Alexander Schöller on the site of the former manor house in Čákovice near Prague. Production was started in 1851. After the economic crisis and the take-over of the Schöller concern by the Živnobanka bank in 1929, the business began to prosper again from the mid-1930s.

22 Hanuš Beckmann, card with records of his place of permanent abode (see note 20).

23 This address was evidently used by other refugees, too. Werner

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David Feist’s cartoon Familienidyll, subtitled Santa Famiglia della Na Slupi, from the private collection of Ursula Feist, shows a family living in straitened circumstances. Werner David Feist was a German photographer and illustrator, who lived in exile in Prague from 1930, when he left the Bauhaus. See Charmian Brison — Marian Malet (eds), Exile in and from Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and 1940s, The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies XI, Institute of Germanic and Romanic Studies University of London, Amsterdam 2009, p. 304, quoted from p. 54.

24 Beckmann Hanuš and his wife Mathylda, citizens of the German Reich — investigation, 9 September 1935 Louny, ad., National Archives of the Czech Republic (see note 20).

25 A typewritten copy has been preserved of an article by Hannes Beckmann, Das Arbeiten mit der Kleinkamera Leica, in which Beckmann describes the technical and artistic merits of this camera. The Getty Research Institute (see note 7), file 17.

26 Beckmann Hanuš and his wife Mathylda, citizens of the German Reich — investigation, 9 September 1935, police station in Louny, National Archives of the Czech Republic (see note 20).

27 It was evidently during this visit to Paris that Hannes Beckmann took the photograph Wasill Kandinsky, 1935, photograph on paper, David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley. Published: Hannes Beckmann (see note 8), quoted from p. 113.

28 This fact is confirmed by the card with records of Hanuš Beckmann’s place of permanent abode, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II. — Records of residents, Police Headquarters II. — EO, location number Beckmann Hanuš 1909.

29 This journey was probably connected with the search for a place that would provide Beckmann with right of abode. He was granted it on 2 December 1936 by the town of Most.

30 The editor-in-chief of the Prager Presse, Arne Laurin, worked a great deal with refugee artists. For example, he maintained friendly relations with Thomas Theodor Heine, as is shown by their correspondence kept in the Museum of Czech Literature, collection Arne Laurin, location number 115/50.

31 Beckmann Hanuš and his wife Mathylda, citizens of the German Reich — investigation, 9 September 1935, police station in Louny, National Archives of the Czech Republic (see note 20).

32 In the spring of 1937 another German immigrant, Raoul Hausmann, held an exhibition in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, so Hannes Beckmann could have come across his work here. The exhibition “The Photographic Work of Raoul Hausmann” presented his abstract or structural photographs. While in Prague, Hausmann experimented with infrared photography and published his findings in Raoul Hausmann, Možnosti infračervené fotografie, Fotografický obzor XLVI, 1938, no. 1, pp. 2–4.

33 Very little information is known about the activity of Karel Stehlík’s studio, or about the work produced there that has been preserved. In the mid-1930s it amalgamated with the Schlosser&Wenisch artistic photography studio. At the present time there does not even exist a detailed biography of Karel Stehlík.

34 Werner David Feist was not only a graduate of the Bauhaus, but he was also arrested as a precautionary measure when Carol II visited Prague, just like Hannes Beckmann (for more details see notes 23 and 57).

35 Hausmann, Možnosti infračervené fotografie (see note 32).

36 Heinz Politzer, Marc Chagall. Versuch über eine Gemeinsamkeit Europäischer und Jüdischer Kunst, Jüdischer Almanach, no. 5696, 1936–1937, pp. 92–100, („Die Photos stammen von Hannes Beckmann“, quoted from p. 100).

37 It has not been possible to establish from the archive material whether Matilda Beckmann, who had lost her Czechoslovak citizenship through her marriage, also had to proceed in this way.

38 Beckmann Hanuš 1909, application for residence permit, 3 October 1935, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II. — General documents, Police Headquarters 1941–1951, location number B 1079/9.

39 Ibidem, location number B 1079/9.40 Photographs from the Beckmann family album, 1935, Doksy,

David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley. The Hannes malt page from the album and the oil paintings Organismus[Organism] and Nocturno [Nocturne], the coloured photograph Masky [Masks] and the collage Udavač [Informer] are published in Bronislava Rokytová, Dost tichého šepotu. Exilová výtvarná scéna v Československu (1933–1939), Praha 2013, pp. 126–133.

41 Hannes Beckmann, Organismus, 1935, oil on canvas, 45.7 × 34.8 cm, David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.

42 For example, it is represented in the works: Meditation, Under Water, Psychologic Landscape, The Fortress, Utopia, and also Cosmos or Nocturne. The works are in the collection David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.

43 Mezinárodní výstava karikatur a humoru [International Exhibition of Cartoons and Humour] (exh. cat.), SVU Mánes v Praze, 6 April — 6 May 1934.

44 The Czech titles of the works are taken from Hannes Beckmann’s application form for the Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists, 1936, Prague City Archives, collection Mánes Union of Fine Arts Prague (1885–1953), Exhibition activity, Files for individual exhibitions, inv. no. 4212, location number 4.1, box 75.

45 I. výstava nesdružených umělců [First Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists] (exh. cat.), SVU Mánes v Praze, 5–27 February 1936, one double-sided sheet of paper. According to the accompanying document, the selling prices of Hannes Beckmann’s paintings were fixed as follows: Procesí 800 Kč, Pod vodou 1 800 Kč, Kosmos 2 000 Kč, Nocturno 1 200 Kč, Sedmičlenná rodina 600 Kč, Obraz (Slavnostní veselí) 1 200 Kč. According to the registration form for the exhibition, the proposed prices for the works that were not accepted were: Maestoso 4 500 Kč, Mešita without a price and the owner designated as Dr. B. F.

46 Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists, Prague City Archives (see note 44), location number 4.1.

47 The following artists exhibited their work at the First Exhibition of Non-Associated Artists: Riana Bačáková, Hannes Beckmann, Kurt Bergmann, Karel Černý, Dagmar Čížková, F. V. Danihelka, Vladimír Doležal, Hana Dostálová, Ot. Gregor, Bohdan Heřmanský, František Hora, Emanuel Hradil, Jan Krahulík, K. T. Neumann, J. Schwarz, Ludvika Smrčková, Mirko Stejskal, Josef Vizner, Jan Zach, and Václav Zykmund. The ten additional artists were: Václav Bartovský, Ondrej Černoušek, Boh. Čížek, Karel Hollmann, Ferdinand Kotvald, A. Landa, Josef Liesler, Václav Němeček, Olga Studničková, and František Štefunko.

48 Ladislav Zívr, Konfese Ladislava Zívra, Brno 1997, p. 58.49 Karel Teige, První výstava nesdružených umělců v Praze, 15

February 1936, press cutting of an article in Rudé právo, 1936, 22 February, p. 8, Museum of Czech Literature, collection Karel Teige, index no. 139/62–1235.

50 The exhibition was discussed in the magazine Pestrý týden, which

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remarked that many artists were represented there, manifesting itself in a considerable diversity both in styles and in the quality of the works, which “did not diverge from the current French-oriented tradition”. See: Výstava „Nesdružených“ a „Umělců z Ostravska“, Pestrý týden XI, Praha 1936, 14 March, quoted from p. 7.

51 For more detail on Czech abstract art see for example Hana Rousová, Linie, barva, tvar v českém výtvarném umění 30. let (exh. cat.), Galerie hlavního města Prahy 1988. — Eadem, František Foltýn 1891–1976 Košice — Paříž — Brno, Brno 2007. — For a detailed examination of Czech surrealism see for example Lenka Bydžovská — Karel Srp (eds), Český surrealismus 1929–1953, Praha 1996. — Iidem, Štyrský, Toyen, Artificialismus 1926–1933 (exh. cat.), Galerie hlavního města Prahy 1992.

52 Gestalt psychology was also increasing in importance in respect to the growth of Nazism. It was established in its basic form in the works of Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka in the 1930s. It was opposed to behaviourism, which explained the behaviour of humans and animals as learned automatic responses reacting to repeated stimuli. The Gestaltists were worried by this explanation of human existence as being passive, trained through drills, and manifesting itself unthinkingly.

53 Letters from Wassily Kandinsky to Hannes Beckmann in the years 1934–1939, The Getty Research Institute (see note 7). — More details in the Archive (see note 10).

54 Jan Beckmann, conferment of Czechoslovak citizenship, in Prague, 2 February 1938, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II. — General documents, Police Headquarters 1941–1951, location number B 1079/9.

55 Beckmann Jan, Prague XII., award of state citizenship, in Most, 13 May 1938, State Regional Archives in Litoměřice, collection Most Municipal Archives, records of inhabitants. The search was negative in the following sources: census of the inhabitants of Most, Most directory, Most electoral roll, collection Association of Friends of the German Museum — artistic exhibitions (1936–1943), records of Czechoslovak citizenship in the district of Most.

56 Matilda Beckmann started to consider her German citizenship as problematical only on the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, when she applied for her citizenship to be reviewed, see Beckmannová Matylda, review of citizenship, in Prague 15 September 1939, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II. — General documents, Police Headquarters 1941–1951, location number B 1080/2.

57 Refugees were often viewed by the police authorities as dangerous people whom it was necessary to keep under constant observation. During visits by leading political figures to Czechoslovakia preventive raids were carried out among the immigrants, and lists of suspicious persons were drawn up, some of whom were detained in custody during the period of the visit. As part of the security measures before the visit to Prague of the Romanian King Carol II, who personified monarcho-fascist tendencies, a police file of suspicious persons was created, which includes among the “terrorists” the name of Hannes Beckmann, suspected of espionage. According to the information in the file he was “kept under surveillance”. This custodial detention lasted from 27 to 31 October 1936. National Archives of the Czech Republic (see note 20), location number V 2848/36.

58 Ibidem, location number B 1080/2.59 Decree on acquiring citizenship for former Czechoslovak citizens

of German origin, 20 April 1939, legal order RGB1.S.815.60 The suspicious photography in Louny mentioned earlier

was eventually explained by the Beckmanns’ professional interest in photography, architecture, and artistic monuments. Beckmann Hanuš and his wife Mathylda, citizens of the German Reich — investigation, 9 September 1935, police station in Louny, National Archives of the Czech Republic (see note 20).

61 The Füstenberg Palace with its gardens is today the seat of the Polish Embassy in the Lesser Town district of Prague.

62 Johannes Beckmann, Citizenship, Prague, 31 January 1934, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Office of the Reichsprotektor, Prague — collection 114, location number 114–131–3/15.

63 In this labour camp there were many well-known Czech personalities, such as the actors Miloš Kopecký, František Filipovský, and Oldřich Nový, or the director Ladislav Rychman.

64 More about this camp, including the recollections of the prisoners, can be found for example in Jaroslav Charvát, Podblanicko proti okupantům, Benešov u Prahy 1966, p. 274.

65 Certificate of national trustworthiness, private archive David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.

66 The Allied bombing raid on Prague on 14 February 1945 lasted only five minutes and evidently took place in bad weather conditions in which a problem occurred with the navigation system — the original target of the raid was to bomb Dresden. The bombing left a trail of destruction across the Radlice, Smíchov, Nusle, and Vršovice districts. It had a fundamental impact on the present-day appearance of the Vinohrady district, and destroyed the Emmaus monastery, Faust House, and the General Hospital on Charles Square. Irreparable damage was caused to the Vinohrady Synagogue on what is today Sázavská street. It claimed many victims, both dead and injured, mostly in the Vinohrady area, which was where the Beckmann family lived.

67 Ministry of the Interior, list of persons professing German citizenship, Prague 4 June 1945, Beckmann Hanuš, Security Services Archive, Prague, collection 2M, location number 2M 11695.

68 Certificate of state and national trustworthiness, Beneš decrees — Constitutional decree no. 33/1945 dated 2 August 1945 on the amendment of the Czechoslovak citizenship of persons with German or Hungarian nationality (point 4). It was issued by the District National Committee (district administrative commission) after reviewing the facts mentioned.

69 Certificate of national trustworthiness (see note 65).70 Ministry of the Interior, Prague 12 June 1945, private archive

David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.71 Application for permission to emigrate to the USA, Prague, 8

December 1947, National Archives of the Czech Republic, collection Police Headquarters, Prague II. — General documents, Police Headquarters 1941–1951, location number B 1079/9.

72 Membership of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists, Prague 14 February 1948, private archive David Hall Fine Art LLC, Wellesley.

73 The collection Non-Objective Painting that was formed became the basis for the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

74 European Painters. Otto Nebel, Vordemberge-Gildewart, Lotte Konnerth, Hannes Beckmann (exh. cat.), Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York 1949, pp. 1–6, quoted from p. 5.

redakční poznámka

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