mäks bĕkˈmän, 1884–1950, German painter. A member of the Berlin secession from 1908 to 1911, he was impressionistic in his early style. A subsequent expressionistic phase was altered c.1917 by the savage new objectivity of George Grosz. Beckmann developed a richer, more personal, more dramatic, and more symbolic art in the 1920s. The power of his allegorical expressionism increased through the war years, which, after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1937, he spent in Amsterdam. Beckmann lived his last three years in New York City, where he taught at the Brooklyn Museum School. His well-known triptych, Departure (1932–35; Mus. of Modern Art, N.Y.C.) is one of 18 powerfully monumental triptychs that culminated in The Argonauts (1950).

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