Adam and Eve (Adam und Eva)

© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
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Adam and Eve (Adam und Eva)

Edition: From edition of 5 executed at the Roman Foundry, New York; cast from the original plaster that Beckmann brought to the US in 1947

1936, cast after 1950
Sculpture
Bronze
33 1/2 × 13 1/8 × 14 1/2 in. (85.09 × 33.34 × 36.83 cm)
Gift of Robert Gore (AC1999.16.1)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Provenance

The artist (1870-1938). [Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York]. [Washburn Gallery, New York]; sold in 1977 to Robert Gore Rifkind (1928-2019), Beverly Hills; given in 1999 to LACMA.

Label

Adam and Eve, a meditation on sin, free will, and the origins of suffering, reflects Max Beckmann’s interest in biblical subjects as well as the artist’s own threatened circumstances in Nazi Ge...
Adam and Eve, a meditation on sin, free will, and the origins of suffering, reflects Max Beckmann’s interest in biblical subjects as well as the artist’s own threatened circumstances in Nazi Germany. In Beckmann’s depiction, Adam is immobilized by the snake while Eve is curled against his chest, referencing her “birth” from one of Adam’s ribs. Beckmann, dismissed from his teaching post in Frankfurt by the Nazis in 1933, would flee to Amsterdam in 1937. His sculptures, eight in total, were cast in bronze and editioned after the artist’s death in 1950.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Barlach, Ernst, Elisabeth Laur, and Volker G. Probst. Ernst Barlach: Das Plastische Werk. Güstrow: Ernst-Barlach-Stiftung, 2006.