The German painter Max Beckmann spent the Second World War in exile in Amsterdam. When the first ship set sail again he emigrated to the USA. To the top right of the picture, under the signature «Beckmann» you can read: «St. L. 47». This means the town of St. Louis in Missouri. Beckmann accepted the position of Professor at the art school there in 1947.

It was here that he painted the picture of the reading woman. She is sitting on an upholstered chair wearing an undergarment and dark coloured tights, and is absorbed in her illustrated magazine. She is avoiding contact with the viewer; her face with its lowered gaze is partly covered. Apart from the pointed tulips at her side, there is no prop to detract from her. Who is this unknown woman? She is reminiscent of an Edouard Manet model; he had painted a reading woman in a café 70 years earlier – at the time a new pictorial motif. But since then circumstances had worsened, the war had left its traces: the upper-class elegance of the 19th century was over and the torn undergarment and colourfully illustrated magazine are signs of the present.

Beckmann’s painting alternates between angular severity and sensuous colouration. He was a great colourist: he has outlined the figure in prominent black. The dirty white of the undergarment and the pale pink of the skin are finely graduated before a grey background. At the front the dark grey determines the colour of the woman’s tights, and the orange-red of the wingback chair, the bangle and the woman’s hair radiate out of these delicate tones.