The Hellish Painting That Set Max Beckmann's Auction Record

Max Beckmann's Hölle Der Vögel (1937-38) sold for $45.83m (£36.01m) at Christie's in London on June 27, 2017. The oil on canvas had been traded five times before.

Beckmann and his wife Mathilde had been forced to leave Germany in July 1937 after his art was declared "degenerate". They found refuge in Amsterdam, where he completed this, one of his few overtly political works. When he began sketching ideas for what became Hölle Der Vögel (Bird's Hell), it was initially titled The Country of the Insane, a reference to the brutality, and popularity, of the Nazi regime.

The lone, human figure being tortured in the foreground has been interpreted as the Nazi's assault on the rights of the individual and its use of political violence.

The canvas was first displayed in Paris in 1938 in the apartment of Beckmann’s friend and supporter, the German-Jewish journalist Käthe von Porada. She acquired the work directly from the artist and kept it safe during WW2.

Much exhibited, two shows stand out in the painting's history. In 1950, it was part of the Faculty Show at the Art School of the Brooklyn Museum. Beckmann had begun teaching there in 1949. The artist died soon after, in December 1950, coincidentally while heading to the Met to see another of his works on show there.

A posthumous show was held in 1951 at Munich's Haus der Kunst, the museum where in 1937 Hitler had denounced Modern artists and the Nazi's opened the notorious blockbuster, "Entartete Kunst", featuring 12 of his paintings.

The sale beat Beckmann's previous auction record by $25.33m, a 100% rise. The previous record was set by Selbstbildnis mit horn - self portrait with horn (1938), which sold for $20.5m at Sotheby's on May 10, 2001.

A Brief History of Beckmann at Auction