120. At the Beach [1943]

During the First World War, Max Hermann Maxy arrived in Iași and managed to integrate into the group of personalities who frequently visited N.D. Cocea. He met here with his first masters: Camil Ressu and Iosif Iser, and they had long discussions about art. The two rooms made available by the journalist N.D. Cocea sometimes served as an exhibition space, and some of the works by Maxy presented within the literary circle were displayed on these easels. Between 1940-1944, constrained by ant-Semitic measures, Maxy limited and even ceased his exhibition activity. Most of his activities will now be carried out in a small community, where a theater and an art academy were still operating. At the Art Academy, Maxy would guide a number of artists such as Yvonne Hassan, Alma Redlinger, or Eva Cerbu. If Wednesday was reserved for corrections, Saturday was the so-called "critique day", where students had the opportunity to engage in theoretical and applied discussions regarding the works created during the week. At the Barașeum Theater, Maxy worked as a stage designer and created decorations for various shows. In 1943, he opened an exhibition in his own home. He presents here works inspired by immediate reality, most of them dealing with the drastic measures affecting the Jewish community. The current artwork dates from the period when Maxy was still working without social-political commitments. His technique is however noticeably more tempered now, and avant-garde insertions are increasingly getting lost. Derived from the series dedicated to the show, ballerinas, and theater people, the work reveals the artist's mastery and creative force. His ballerinas are reminiscent of the famous "ballet dancers" of Iser, both in the manner of rendering insipid bodies and in the positions in which the artist proposes for the muses to pose. Predominant in this period are strident colors and strong contrasts. Shades of red, blue, and gold are prominently outlined, subtly complementing the complexion of the models of Maxy. Built in a monumental manner, with bodies that spread across the entire canvas, the three characters are depicted in bathing costumes or with naked bodies, posing in statuesque poses, looking into the distance, as if posing for the artist.

References

OPREA, Petre, "M. H. Maxy", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1974. ILK, Michael, "M. H. Maxy. Integral Artist", Berlin, 2003.

Dimensions

width 48.5 cm, height 69 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed and dated bottom left, in blue, "Maxy, 1943"

Dating

1943

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