Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

MASTERPIECES OF THE EXPRESSIONIST KIRCHNER FROM HIS BRÜCKE-TIME AND BERLIN YEARS
29.1. – 6.3.2010


From the end of January until the start of March 2010 Galerie Michael Haas will be presenting an exhibition of drawings and watercolours by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) from his most important creative period. In the “Brücke-time” (1905-1910) as well as his years in Berlin (1912-1915) the artist made a vital contribution to 20th Century German art, predominantly through his drawings and watercolours. They are seen today as an essential key to the understanding of German Expressionism. Recently in 2008 the Berlin Brücke Museum presented Kirchner’s works on paper as the focal point of an extensive exhibition.

Kirchner belongs to the greatest draughtsmen of German art in the 20th Century. The drawings form the core of his output; it is from here that his paintings and etchings originate. With sketchbook always to hand, Kirchner drew impressions in charcoal, Indian ink, pencil and watercolour as if possessed – quick and spontaneous.

As a 25 year old, Kirchner completes his Architecture degree in Dresden and decides to become a painter. He was part of a time of massive social, artistic, technical, and scientific breakthrough and change. In 1905, with friends, he founded “Die Brücke” (The Bridge) collective. Kirchner’s concept of the ‘fifteen minute nude’ forced any prospective artist to capture the essence of a nude study on paper within fifteen minutes. Subjectivity and spontaneity characterized Kirchner’s quick notes and works on paper. With this Kirchner was striking out into new artistic territory. The soft, bright French inspired forms of the numerous studio scenes or from outdoors are typical of his earlier period. In Berlin, where he lived from 1911 they became hard, jagged lines. The tension of urban life in the years before the outbreak of war and also Kirchner’s own inner nervousness are reflected in the drawings. In order to catch the variety and intensity of these impressions the artist radically abbreviated forms. Although he orientated himself around what he saw, his ‘hieroglyphic’ sketches are rather more of an experience, a feeling. The works are impressions of a time and of an intensely inventive life. Kirchner’s drawings are based on spontaneous expression well into the 1920s, even when his motifs included the Swiss mountains, where Kirchner lived from 1917.

A catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition.