The Financial Times announces that Max Beckmann’s Bird’s Hell which was featured in a recent Beckmann show, will be offered in their London sales with  £30m estimate. Christie’s is currently only scheduled to hold Impressionist and Modern sales in London this June but the Beckmann is a significant 20th Century painting that sits on the cusp of the categories.

“Bird’s Hell” was the first work created by Beckmann — who was known as an Expressionist painter even though he rejected the label — after he and his second wife left Germany for exile in the Netherlands in 1937. […]

“Bird’s Hell” makes an explicit attack on the regime. At the front, a naked man is bound to a table while a bird carves vicious wounds in his back. A group of naked women huddle together, awaiting their fate. Beside them, another group of menacing bird figures return the Nazi salute of the freakish bird-woman.

Max Beckmann’s ‘Bird’s Hell’ to go under the hammer in London (Financial Times)