Cleveland Museum of Art

Happy New Year 1917

Max Beckmann

Date

1917

Medium

drypoint

Culture

Germany, 20th century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This closely packed image portrays a mix of people at a holiday party. A skeleton-like war veteran with a patched eye is just one of several inebriated patrons whose celebration of a new year, Beckmann implies, is pure folly. The artist often worked in drypoint, a method of directly scratching a plate to create an image that, when inked, retains a velvety burr around the lines. The technique allowed him to work spontaneously, similar to sketching with a pen on paper.

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