Max Beckmann looks stoically from his "Self-portrait yellow-pink" past the viewer into an uncertain future: ostracized as "degenerate" by the Nazi regime, the expressionist artist painted himself in 1944 in Dutch exile with his arms crossed in front of a blind mirror, like standing still in the world storm of his time.

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the Feuilleton.

  • Follow I follow

The fact that this image of all things raised the top of the German auction industry to international heights in the multiple crisis year 2022 may seem almost symbolic.

Local auction houses reported records from the shocks caused by the still virulent pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the gas shortage and inflation: above all, the hammer price of 20 million euros for Beckmann’s self-portrait at Grisebach in Berlin.

The most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in Germany is at a price level that was reached for a Beckmann self-portrait some time ago – but in New York, not in Berlin.

It is more than twice as expensive as the fire-gilded bronze of an Indian deity, which, auctioned at Nagel in Stuttgart, set a new German record last year, which in turn achieved the price at Grisebach in 2018 for the previous leader, Beckmann's "Egyptian". , doubled.

So it's a steep climb at the upper end, but under your own steam and within a realistic framework.

The expectation of the auction house, expressed in advance with feelers stretched out in the direction of the USA, that the “Self-portrait yellow-pink” could bring in “up to 30 million euros” was not fulfilled.

The 87-year-old entrepreneur from Stuttgart, Reinhold Würth, has now revealed himself to be the buyer: His business – with assembly and fastening materials – also went well in the year that was drawing to a close and enabled a substantial investment in the company's own art collection.

In this, as Würth announced, Beckmann's self-portrait will soon be accessible to everyone - with free admission.

This is good news at the end of the year for everyone who regrets that the art collection of another southern German entrepreneur has never found a permanent museum home;

in return, she boosted sales at the auction house Ketterer in Munich.

Outstanding works by German Expressionists are always in great demand.

Four of the ten most expensive works at German auctions in 2022 come from Gerlinger's "Brücke" collection: the "Blue Girl in the Sun" and "Squatting" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the Lasker-Schüler portrait "Reading" and the double nude " Red Dune” by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

They contributed to the annual turnover of 103 million euros at Ketterer - the best in the company's history.

As the only living contemporary among the top ten, Gerhard Richter was involved.

Grisebach, where Beckmann's “Gray Beach” and a “Russian Ballet” by Max Pechstein jumped well over the million mark, also posted a new sales record of 73 million.

Lempertz in Cologne also achieved a plus compared to the previous year with a turnover of 51.5 million euros - and brings a little international flair to the list of the best with a monument design by Alberto Giacometti.

Apart from the Swiss, this time there are only German artists.

The fact that they are all men still corresponds to the distribution of power between the sexes according to art market value.

However, based on the top positions, one should not assume provincialism.

Art and customers from all over the world meet in Germany.

In the top price segment of over a million, a steel sculpture by Richard Serra was recently brought back to America, brokered by Ketterer;

and at the same flight level, but more airy, an artist's kite by the Japanese Kazuo Shiraga from the Paul Eubel collection came to Switzerland via Nagel in Stuttgart.

So it goes back and forth, according to the wishes of the traders, always on the upswing despite all the storms.