PECHSTEIN, MAX

born Dec. 31, 1881, Zwickau, Ger. died June 29, 1955, Berlin painter and printmaker who was a leading member of the group of German Expressionist artists known as Die Brcke. He is best known for his paintings of nudes and landscapes. In 1906, when Pechstein joined Die Brcke, he was painting in the style of the Impressionists. But his association with the members of Die Brcke and exposure to the works of Matisse led Pechstein to use vigorous brushstrokes and jarring combinations of unmixed colours, as in his Indian and Woman (1910). In 1910 Pechstein joined the Neue Sezession (New Secession), an association of artists in Berlin. His works of this period have simpler compositions and more sombre colours. In 1914 he traveled to Palau in the western Pacific, where he painted exotic subjects in a deliberately primitive manner. Back in Europe, he designed stained glass and mosaics and took a teaching position at the Berlin Academy. He was forced to resign when the Nazis declared his work decadent but regained his post after World War II. His late work, however, lost much of the vigour of his earlier styles.