Being the representative of the estate of Herbert Beck, Tegernsee, Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art would like to draw your attention to an exhibition at Connaught Brown, London, one of the leading art galleries for classical modern art.

Showing late watercolours by Herbert Beck the exhibition focuses largely on landscapes which stand out for their bright and glowing colours and impressions of deep vastness. On other paintings plants and flowers form expressive fireworks or appear mystic and magical, particularly in the nocturnal scenes.

Herbert Beck was never supposed to be a painter. Born the son of a renowed jeweller in Leipzig, it was his family's expectation that he would carry on the tradition. Before the family fled Leipzig in 1948, Beck trained as a goldsmith's apprentice, spending his free time dabbling in drawing classes at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts. It was only after the family settled in Tegernsee that Beck became fully dedicated to his artistic pursuit of painting. While the turmoil of the war stymied his family's intentions, it simultaneously afforded Beck the freedom to pursue his passion-leaving only jewel-toned hues of his oeuvre as traces of the fate rewritten.

Though largely self-taught, Beck's prepossessing style garnered significant attention in avantgarde circles. In the years just after settling in Tegernsee, Beck had shows in Sweden and Paris, but it was his one-man show in 1952 at the Galerie Commeter in Hamburg which most informet Beck's artistic investigations. Here the artist met the on-time member of Die Brucke, Emil Nolde. Beck was already interested in the ways in which the Expressionist style could evoke strong emotional reactions in the viewer, but it was through his reaction with Nolde that the artist began to investigate the ways in which the wet-on-wet watercolour technique and its ability to create a deep luminous stin of colour could take these values to another level.

Beck became fascinated with Nolde's Expressionist style, and applied it vigorously to his chosen medium of oil. It was only after a serious illness due to his long exposure to turpentine in 1984 that Beck wholeheartedly switched over to watercolour himself and began to create the vibrant compositions that have come to characterize his later works.

Connaught Brown, 2 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4HD
Herbert Beck (1920-2010), Works on Paper, from 1st - 31th of March 2012
E-Catalogue: http://bit.ly/Herbert-Beck

For further information please contact:
Dr. Andrea Knop, Tel.: 0211/4915890 or andrea.knop@beck-eggeling.de

BECK & EGGELING
Bilker strasse, 5 D 40213 Düsseldorf
T +49 211 49 15 890
info@beck-eggeling.de