SAINT LOUIS, MO.- To celebrate the 131st birthday of Max Beckmann today (Thursday, Feb. 12), the Saint Louis Art Museum announces the upcoming publication of a hardcover book by Lynette Roth exploring in depth the museum’s outstanding holdings of paintings by the German artist, the largest collection of its kind in the world.

Roth, a former Mellon Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum, is the Daimler-Benz Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums, in Cambridge, Mass.

Richly illustrated and filled with detailed information about one of the leading artists of the 20th century, Max Beckmann at the Saint Louis Art Museum will be published in June.

It is the first book to examine in depth all 39 paintings in the museum’s collection. Featuring some of Beckmann’s most celebrated images, the book offers fascinating insights into Beckmann’s life and art—in particular his underappreciated early work and previously unexplored aspects of his final years in the United States.

Divided into six sections, Max Beckmann at the Saint Louis Art Museum traces Beckmann’s involvement with the Berlin Secession; his post-World War I life and rise to fame; the impact of Parisian culture on Beckmann’s art; his life under Nazi rule and exile in Amsterdam; his role in the St. Louis art scene of the 1940s; and his complex relationship to his adopted country. Accompanying each chapter are discussions of relevant works, documentary photographs, and comparative illustrative material that will deepen readers’ understanding of Beckmann’s evolution as an artistic force.

The 272-page book, which features 160 color illustrations, is published in association with Prestel Publishing.