8 April 2023
Opening Friday, 3 March
6-8pm
Marcus Behmer
3 March - 8 April 2023
Galerie Buchholz New York is delighted to present the first monographic exhibition devoted to the German artist Marcus Behmer in the United States since 1912. Born in 1879 in Weimar, Marcus Behmer began his artistic practice in 1900 working in the field of book illustration and graphic design. Imaginative, emotional, funny, and courageous, he developed a style of drawing and engraving that was celebrated in the German modernist bibliophile communities of the early 20th century, working extensively for the publisher Insel Verlag and producing illustrations for editions of books by Balzac, Voltaire, Goethe, Philipp Otto Runge, and Oscar Wilde, among others, and contributing drawings and illustrations to Simplicissimus, the satirical, progressive German magazine.
Marcus Behmer moved between Weimar, Munich, Paris, and Florence as an early adult before settling in Berlin. He sought out a wide range of artistic influences including Japanese woodcuts, Italian renaissance drawing, Persian design, Arabic literature, Greek and Latin texts, Buddhist and Old Testament stories, as well as literature and art by his contemporaries, with a notable love for the English illustrator and author Aubrey Beardsley. By 1903, he was a member of the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee), the first organized movement to campaign for overt social recognition of homosexuality. He was conscripted into the German army and served in World War I where he spent much of his active duty making portraits of wounded soldiers to send to their families. Back in Berlin in the 1920s, his drawings, etchings, New Years greeting cards, paper cut-outs, and erotic works developed in a free and highly personal style. In 1927 he designed and cast a modern Hebrew font which was used by the Berlin Soncino Gesellschaft to print fine Hebrew books as well as an edition of the Torah. His work with Jewish publishers together with his open homosexuality ultimately led to his arrest by the Nazis in 1936. He was incarcerated for 19 months for “decadent or anti-social tastes and ideas”.
In a 1957 issue of the periodical “The Studio”, poet and critic Edoard Roditi wrote “During the years of his martyrdom, Behmer drew a series of allegories that […] record the persecuted artist’s hopes and fears, his satirical observations and his terrifying hallucinations. On the bitter chalice from which he too must drink a foul beverage brewed by his tormentors, one can read the names of other thinkers and artists who have similarly been persecuted for their beliefs or tastes. Socrates, Cellini, Verlaine, Wilde… Elsewhere, the dolphin that once saved the life of the poet Arion is either coming to Behmer’s rescue or perhaps represents Behmer himself. It is as a fantastic visionary, a recorder of visions and apocalyptic allegories, that Behmer has perhaps expressed most faithfully his complex personality, both morbid and childlike, both learned and playful.”
The exhibition at Galerie Buchholz New York draws from the artist’s entire oeuvre with over 200 drawings, illustrations, etchings, books, ex-libri, paper cut-outs, New Years cards, manuscripts, letters and photographs, including drawings made in prison. Works by Marcus Behmer are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (many gifted by J.B. Neumann); the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the RISD Museum, Providence; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Leo Baeck Institute, New York. In England, his works belong to the British Museum as well as the Victoria & Albert Museum. In Germany, his works are held in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, the Kunsthalle Mannheim, the Berlinische Galerie, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, as well as the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach. In Japan, his work belongs to the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya.
“It is difficult to know where to begin in commenting upon the bulk of Behmer’s many achievements. Initials, tailpieces, arabesques, illustrations, book-plates, grotesque facetious etched plates, satirical caricatures, New-Year cards, book covers, broadsides of old-fashioned wood-cuts, decorative borders for his own literary fragments of no mean order of merit, graceful fans and anniversary announcements - these are some of the things to which he has given his attention. No matter how slight the work may be, his harmonious treatment of surfaces and the rhythmical division of blacks and whites, are marked by notable taste. The print departments of the museums at Hamburg, Frankfort, and Weimar possess the best collections of his work, and the visitor is impressed by his interest in reproductive methods and by a fastidiousness and preciousness which bring joy to the heart of the modern connoisseur. If it were not also characterized by a rare degree of mastery, we should say it is the work of a brilliant amateur, an “autodidact” whose most serious and agreeable pastimes are the byways of art. He will never tire of work because he plays at it like a dilettant, or rather like a patient fifteenth-century scribe.
Much of Behmer’s work is done on a minute scale with the most painstaking care, and among the best of these miniatures are the circular soft-ground etchings, reminding us of Greek cameos and coins. We know of no graphic work to which his little “Saint George,” or the “Saint Anthony of Padua attracting Fish with his Eloquence,” can be compared. They are printed, as are his other works, on rare old paper which he is continually in search of, like Ernest Haskell, whose aesthetic technique resembles Behmer’s in its uncompromising detail. His portraits, too, strike a peculiar note. Some are in the early Florentine style, and will appeal to those of our own day on whom primitive art seems to exert such a strong fascination. You need never to have seen his young Latin loafers to divine their ardent Southern passions. Akin to these is the remarkable portrait of Alexander Olbricht, another talented etcher of Weimar, whose profile, with its fine deep-set eyes, suggesting a stormy, energetic nature, was etched with caressing, affectionate art. Although there are flat surfaces like those employed by Vallotton, there are no dead spaces. His precision, aristocratic reserve, and a certain hardness, are far cries from the freedom of many of his contemporaries, but his painstaking method does not look labored. He is devoted to book decoration, and has ornamented many of the finest products of the famous Insel Verlag. The initials in these books display an Oriental intricacy and cunning, and the best illustrations, successfully and harmoniously combine what Walter Crane, in his admirable work on Decorative Illustration, has termed the pictorial statement and the decorative statement.
Many noted Continental critics have paid tributes to his art, but the time for a final estimate is not yet ripe, although no account of contemporary German graphic art is complete without some notice of him. He is only thirty-three years old, and is still in a period of ferment and manifold activities. Some of his utterances have a morbidity typical of our generation, which could at any moment become a destructive force, were it not tempered by a quaint, ever-present humor. His aesthetic sense, too, is becoming so sharp and his artist judgment - inherited from his father, a conservative professor of art at Weimar - seems so well balanced, than an admirer, watching him round out his fame, is tempted to prophesy only the best things.”
Martin Birnbaum, New York Berlin Photographic Company, 1912
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Männlicher Kopf), 1905
ink on handmade paper
44 x 38 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Mann mit Hut),
n.d. (ca. 1900)
ink on paper
27.7 x 21.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Der Kobold), 1900
ink on vellum
22.5 x 29.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Melancholie!!, n.d. (ca. 1900)
ink, coloured pencil on paper
27 x 19.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled, n.d. (ca. 1905)
ink and pastel on paper
19.2 x 11.7 cm
Marcus Behmer
Florenz, 12. Mai 1906, Villa Gelsomina, 1906
ink, pencil and coloured pencil
on paper
30 x 20 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (aus Inselmappe),
n.d. (ca. 1900-1902)
18 parts, stereotype on paper
each 33.5 x 26.2 cm
(framed: 53.2 x 44.3 x 1.5 cm)
untitled, n.d. (ca. 1900-1902)
ink on paper
22.5 x 18.3 cm
(framed: 36.3 x 32 x 2.8 cm)
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Selbstportrait hinter Landschaft), 1898
ink and watercolor on paper
35.8 x 44.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Vogel und Frosch),
n.d (ca. 1905)
coloured pencil, pencil and watercolor on cardstock
28.4 x 21 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Vogel-Mensch), 1905
ink and coloured pencil on paper
31.5 x 21 cm
Marcus Behmer
Der Weise!!, 1900
ink and coloured pencil on paper
29.5 x 20.4 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled, ca. 1900
coloured pencil, gold, ink on cardstock
31.5 x 23.7 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled, 1900
ink and coloured pencil on paper
30.5 x 21.1 cm
Marcus Behmer
Page Goldhelm, 1901
ink and coloured pencil on paper
22.5 x 18 cm
Collection Scott Portnoy
Marcus Behmer
untitled, 1902
ink on paper
21.6 x 16.4 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Faust und Wagner (Illustration für Ver Sacrum), n.d. (ca. 1900)
ink and coloured pencil on cardstock
33.5 x 25 cm
Marcus Behmer
Gehörnter Männerkopf, 1905
ink and pastel on paper
22.5 x 17.3 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled, n.d. (ca. 1900)
ink and pencil on paper
21 x 16.8 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled, 1901
ink on paper
22.2 x 18 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Kobold und Falter), 1904
ink and pastel on cardstock
31.8 x 23.1 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (auf einer Wiese sitzender Gnom), n.d. (ca. 1900)
watercolor on paper
19 x 16.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled, 1907
ink on paper
40 x 36 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Zadig, Nr. 11. Almonas Scheiterhaufen (aus Voltaire: Zadig oder Das Geschick), 1912
etching and aquatint on paper
print size 12,4 x 8,4 cm,
paper size 21,5 x 15,7 cm
Marcus Behmer
Die Nase (aus Voltaire: Zadig oder Das Geschick), 1908
etching on paper
print size 10 x 10 cm,
paper size 29 x 22 cm
Marcus Behmer
Der Engel Jesra (aus Voltaire: Zadig oder Das Geschick), 1908
etching on paper
print size 10 x 9,5 cm,
paper size 22,2 x 14,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
Zadig, Nr. 21. Der Fisch Oannes (aus Voltaire: Zadig oder das Geschick), 1912
etching on paper
print size 21,2 x 15,2 cm,
paper size 32 x 21,5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Zadig, Nr. 37. Das Geschick (Brücke) (aus Voltaire: Zadig oder Das Geschick), 1912
etching on paper
print size 21,4 x 16,3 cm,
paper size 32 x 21,5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Zadig, Nr. 5. Das abgelehnte Gold (Dr. Alfred)-Hündchen, 1912
etching on handmade paper
print size 8 x 16,5 cm,
paper size 31,5 x 21,5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Zadig, Nr. 5. Das abgelehnte Gold (Dr. Alfred)-Hündchen, 1912
lithography on paper
29.9 x 21.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled, n.d. (ca. 1904)
etching on paper
print size 8 x 12 cm,
paper size ca. 27 x 36 cm
Marcus Behmer
AUBREY BEARDSLEY IMPERATOR, 1903
lithography on paper
33 x 22.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Exlibris Dr. Oskar Kohnstamm (Vorzeichnung), n.d. (ca. 1911)
ink and pencil on handmade paper
23.8 x 20.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
Josef et Marius (zu Lettres amoureuses d’une frèrè à son élève) (aus Balzac: Das Mädchen mit den Goldaugen), 1903
stereotype on paper
35 x 27.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Exlibris Frieda Liermann (Vorzeichnung), n.d. (ca. 1907)
ink on paper
25.6 x 21.3 cm
Marcus Behmer
Neujahrswunsch für 1905, 1904
2 parts, lithography on paper, hand-coloured
each 20,9 x 14,3 cm
Marcus Behmer
Herr Piepenbrink & Pupitanus Magnus, 1905
ink and watercolor on paper
11.5 x 15 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Der Sozialiste, 1908
etching on paper
print size 9,8 x 9,5 cm,
paper size 29,3 x 22 cm
Marcus Behmer
Das Flötenlied (Delphin-Reiter), Arion, 1908
etching on paper
print size 10,2 x 14,9 cm,
paper size 24 x 33 cm
Marcus Behmer
Der Edel-Kunsthistoriker (aus der Mappe ‘Tierchen’), 1909
etching on paper
print size 9,3 x 9,3 cm,
paper size 29 x 22 cm
Marcus Behmer
Der gemeine Kunsthistoriker (aus der Mappe ‘Tierchen’), 1908
etching on paper
print size 10 x 10 cm,
paper size 26,2 x 21 cm
Marcus Behmer
Prometheus, 1908
etching on paper
print size 12,5 x 9 cm,
paper size 29 x 21,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Prometheus, Karl Wolfskehl als Lichtbringer), 1910
ink and white paint on paper
33.5 x 45.5 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Der Gehenkte, 1908
aquatint on paper
print size 15 x 14,5 cm,
paper size 33,3 x 23,5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Verführung (White Athenian Vase), 1908
aquatint on paper
print size 5 x 15 cm,
paper size 33,5 x 23,9 cm
Marcus Behmer
A genoux au saint repas, 1934
ink and coloured pencil on paper
20.9 x 14.8 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Exlibris Max Schmidt, 1924
etching on handmade paper,
handcolored
print size 6,4 x 4,4 cm,
paper size 10,1 x 7,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
Neujahrswunsch für 1924 (Fliegentod), 1923
etching on handmade paper,
handcolored
print size 5,8 x 4,8 cm,
paper size 10,2 x 8,3 cm
Marcus Behmer
Exlibris Hugo & Else Lewin, 1924 (1927)
etching, aquatint on handmade paper, handcolored
print size 5,1 x 4,2 cm,
paper size 10,2 x 7,6 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Niemand kann wieder sein Schicksal, 1905
lithography on paper
44.5 x 33.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
Die Insel. (Widmungsblatt für Kippenberg) (Allegorie / Festradierung für den Band Navigare necesse est), 1924
etching on handmade paper
print size 30 x 19,5 cm,
paper size 19,6 x 12,4 cm
Marcus Behmer
De Kaiser (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), 1914
etching on paper
print size 12,5 x 8,5 cm,
paper size 18,5 x 13,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
De Kaiser (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), n.d. (ca. 1914)
crayon and coloured pencil on parchment
61 x 42 cm
Marcus Behmer
Dat Lustholt (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), 1914
etching on paper
print size 5,3 x 8,9 cm,
paper size 18,5 x 13,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
De Wind (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), 1914
etching on paper
print size 5,4 x 8,8 cm,
paper size 18,5 x 13,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
De Paabst (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), 1914
etching on paper
print size 12,5 x 8,7 cm,
paper size 18,8 x 13,9 cm
Marcus Behmer
De Sünn (aus Runge: Von dem Fischer un syner Fru), 1914
etching on paper
print size 5,1 x 8,8 cm,
paper size 18,5 x 13,8 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Tab. VII, aus der Serie ‘Schloss Marzipan’), 1929
ink and coloured pencil on paper
22.8 x 18.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Gegenüber durchs Fenster, beschneites Scheunendach, 2 kämpfende Vögel am Futterhäuschen vor dem Fenster im Winter, 1935
pencil, watercolor on paper
25.5 x 19.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
Morgensonne (Blick aus der Gefängniszelle in Stockach), 1937
watercolor on paper
10.6 x 6.3 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Das Zellenfenster in Stochach, Riffelglas und die Taube auf dem Dache), 1937
watercolor on paper
20 x 19.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Vorzeichnung für ‘Gefährliche Meerfahrt hinter Schloss und Riegel’), 1936/1937
ink and coloured pencil on paper
32.8 x 23.2 cm
Marcus Behmer
Apokalypse 9, 1937
ink on paper
23 x 18.4 cm
Marcus Behmer
Mario, 1936
ink and pastel on paper
31.4 x 22.4 cm
Marcus Behmer
Hirschen-Salome, 1937
ink, pencil on paper
14.8 x 20.9 cm
Marcus Behmer
Ho theos, hilásthetí moi to hamartolo (graece), 1937
ink, watercolor on paper
24.5 x 19 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
Für Ella z. 70. Lynkeus: Zum Sehen Geboren, 1929
etching on paper
print size 12,8 x 8,8 cm,
paper size 17,7 x 11,2 cm
Marcus Behmer
Notzucht (à Wendel Dietterlin d.J.), 1928
etching on washi
print size 13 x 8,8 cm,
paper size 17,2 x 12,5 cm
Marcus Behmer
Ercole Fortunati, 1909
etching on paper
print size 17,5 x 12,3 cm,
paper size 34,3 x 24,2 cm
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Illustration zu Jean Paul), 1941
ink, watercolor on paper
28 x 21.1 cm
(framed: 46 x 38.2 x 2.8 cm)
Marcus Behmer
installation view
Galerie Buchholz, New York 2023
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Vorzeichnung für Exlibris Dr. Heinz Möller), 1902
ink and coloured pencil on handmade paper
28 x 21 cm
Marcus Behmer
untitled (Motiv später verwendet für Exlibris Dr. Heinz Möller), 1902
ink, pencil and gold on paper
31 x 23 cm
Marcus Behmer
Merkur bekommt keine Antwort, 1954
ink and watercolor on paper mounted on cardstock
22.5 x 15.6 cm
Marcus Behmer
Die reichgeschmückte Hand, 1955
ink on paper
12.2 x 9.3 cm