Paris: As Europeans seek to eradicate the trauma of war in a new broader union, Paris' Pompidou Centre opens its 2002-2003 season on September 12 with a show by Max Beckmann, a German painter whose works echo the continent's murderous 20th Century conflicts.

Born in 1884 in Leipzig, Beckmann died on a cold day in 1950 while on his way to Central Park in New York, where for the second time he had begun life as an exile from the troubles ravaging Europe.

Viewed as one of the major artists of the last Century, Beckmann's prolific output in difficult times, more than 800 paintings and hundreds of prints and drawings, reflects both the making of history and the shaping of modern art.

"As a German national who was twice forced into exile, to the Netherlands and to the United States, his was a turbulent existence in already troubled times," said Didier Ottinger, curator of the show at Paris' top modern art museum.

"He became somewhat of a seismographer of current events," Ottinger said in an interview. "And he also believed that art had a role to play in the shaping of history," he added.

One of the largest retrospectives yet of his work, and the first ever held in Paris, the exhibition runs until January before travelling to the Tate Modern in London in February and to New York's Museum of Modern Art in June.

Beckmann's turn-of-the-century works, influenced by the impressionists, turned him into one of the most celebrated young artists of Berlin. He also began writing in his early years, penning his thoughts on history and on the role of art in society.

When war broke out, Beckmann volunteered as a nurse on the front, an experience that both transformed his work and triggered a nervous breakdown.

Writing from the front in 1915, he described the situation as "unforgettable and strange".

"In all those holes and sharp trenches. Those ghostly passageways and artificial forests and houses. That fatal hissing of the rifle bullets and the roar of the big guns. Strangely unreal cities, like lunar mountains, have emerged from there," he said.

Realism marked his work from then on. A 1915 drawing "The Shell" shows distorted bodies, pain and violent explosion. A 1918-1919 painting "The Night" depicts with harsher colour and hardened contours the helplessness of mankind.

Beckmann rocketed to the top of the German art scene in the 1920s, softening his touch while continuing to chronicle social life.

He taught in Frankfurt, travelled to Italy and spent three years in Paris where his work took on shades of Picasso, Matisse and Leger while refusing any hint of the abstract.