Stehender männlicher Rückenakt relates closely to Beckmann's monumental unfinished painting Auferstehung, begun in 1916 and now in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, as well as the 1918 pen and ink drawing of the same title (lot 227). Conceived shortly after his discharge from military service, Auferstehung abandons the conventions of Beckmann's earlier Resurrection scene (1908-09), transposing the biblical subject to a war-ravaged city where figures emerge from the ruins in a vision of suffering and renewal. The figure depicted in the present drawing appears as the protagonist of both the Stuttgart painting and the related pen and ink drawing, where he assumes the form of a gaunt, Christ-like figure at the compositional centre. The work also relates closely to lot 306, a study of the striding figure at the upper right of the Auferstehung compositions.
This drawing, as well as the previous lot, once belonged to the collectors Walter and Käthe Carl, who were amongst the first patrons of Max Beckmann in Frankfurt. Walter Carl was Friedel Battenberg's brother, and it was undoubtedly through this connection that they got to know the artist. A very fine double portrait of the couple painted in 1918 is on permanent loan to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (inv. no. LG76).