Regarding the trip to Pirano, Italy in 1924 that prompted him to paint Lido:

I spent two weeks in Italy by the Adriatic Sea and saw wonderful things there which I want to try to recreate. I am painting portraits, still lifes, landscapes, visions of towns rising up out of the sea, beautiful women, and grotesque monsters. People bathing and female nudes; in short a life — a life that simply exists. Without thoughts or ideas. Filled with colours and forms from nature and from out of myself. — As beautiful as possible." *

In response to a reporter asking why he puts fish into paintings such as Fisherwomen:

"Because I like fish, both to eat and to look at. Also they are symbols." What do they symbolize? "Geist — spirit," Beckmann replies positively. "But the man who looks at my pictures must figure them out for himself."  #

* Letter to I.B. Neumann of 9 August 1924 as reprinted in Nina Peter, "The Painter on the Beach: Beckmann's Italian Paintings," trans. Fiona Elliott, in Sean Rainbird, ed., Max Beckmann (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003), pp. 84, 90.

# "Made in U.S.A." Time, vol. 54, no. 17, (24 October 1949).