Adam and Eve

Following his dismissal from his teaching position in Frankfurt by the National Socialists in 1933, Beckmann relocated to Berlin, where he hoped to continue his work in the anonymity of the capital. The following year, at the age of 50, the renowned painter began to sculpt in clay and plaster — an extension of his interest in representing space and volume on a canvas’s two-dimensional surface. In a subtle reference to his own artistic process, Beckmann here combines the biblical creation story (Adam, himself formed from a lump of clay by his maker, clutches an embryonic Eve to his chest) with that of the fall of man, evoked by the snake that entwines the figure.The last sculpture Beckmann made in Berlin before he immigrated to Amsterdam, and one of only eight in his oeuvre, Adam and Eve was never actually cast by the artist. Instead, it was posthumously produced in bronze in an edition of five by his estate. Its kneaded, uneven surface suggests that the formation of the human figure from clay is the ultimate creative act.