Max Beckmann born 1884, Leipzig, Germany; died 1950, New York City Max Beckmann was born February 12, 1884, in Leipzig, Germany. He began to study art with Carl Frithjof Smith at the Grossherzogliche Kunstschule, Weimar, in 1900 and made his first visit to Paris in 1903–04. During this period, Beckmann began his lifelong practice of keeping a diary, or Tagebuch. In the fall of 1904 he settled in Berlin. offset print international shipping with tracking no.