Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Biography of German Expressionist Painter, Founder of Die Brucke (The Bridge) Art Group with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

The German artist Ernst Kirchner was an important member of the Die Brucke art group, a key movement which would lead to the foundation of German Expressionism in the 20th century. He was prone to mental breakdowns, exacerbated by war experiences, which eventually lead to his suicide at the age of 58. Best known for his Berlin street scenes and nudes, his most notable works include Berlin Street Scene, 1913 (Brucke Museum, Berlin) and Self-Portrait as a Soldier, 1915 (Allen Memorial Art Museum, Ohio).

Born in Aschaffenburg, Germany his family settled in Chemitz in 1890. Between 1901 and 1905 he studied Architecture at the Dresden Technische Hochschule, followed by perspective drawing and history of art at the Königliche Technische Hochschule in Munich (a private experimental art school established by the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz and sculptor Hermann Obrist). Here, he studied famous artists of the Renaissance as well as the Impressionists.

In 1905, along with Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, he established Die Brucke (The Bridge) art group. Later members were Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde and Otto Mueller. The aim of the movement was to act as a 'bridge' between past and present art, and to create a new mode of artistic expression. They drew on Old Masters from the Northern Renaissance era like Albrecht Durer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder, and looked to contemporary international movements including Primitivism. They revived old media, particularly woodcut prints (and invented the printmaking technique of linocut). Their fine art painting was emotionally charged, often containing violent imagery and powerful use of colour. Initially they produced city scenes, but gradually this switched to nudes. Paintings from his early period include Reclining Nude With Pipe, 1909; Girl under a Japanese Parasol, 1909 and Self-Portrait with a Model, 1910.

Self-Portrait as a Soldier, Allen
Memorial Art Museum, Ohio (1915).

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In 1911 Kirchner moved to Berlin, and founded the MUIM-Institut with Max Pechstein (Moderner Unterricht im Malen - Modern Teaching of Painting), however the school closed one year later due to lack of funds. Paintings from this period include Five Bathers by a Lake, 1911; Negro Dance, 1911; Milly Sleeping, 1911; Female Nude with Hat, 1911; Toilette, Woman in front of a mirror, 1911; Two women with a Washbasin, 1913 and Five Woman in the Street, 1913. In 1913, he wrote the Chronicle of the Brucke, which caused in-fighting between the group and led to its collapse. At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered to go to the front, but was discharged within a year because of a nervous collapse. He spent the following two years in a sanatorium in Switzerland, only to be hit by a car in 1917 sustaining severe injuries. He depicted himself in his painting Self-Portrait as a Soldier, 1915 with an amputated hand (this did not happen). In 1918 he moved to a farmhouse in Davos, Switzerland, after which he produced mainly landscapes. He wrote to a friend at the time, 'Here one learns how to see further and go deeper than in 'modern' life, which is generally so very much more superficial despite its wealth of outer forms.'

The 1920s were a successful decade for Kirchner, a significant exhibition of his works took place at an art gallery in Basel, which helped establish his reputation. A group of Swiss artists (painters Paul Camenisch, Hermann Scherer and Albert Müller) asked him to join their new art group: The Association of Rot-Blaue (Red and Blue).

In 1931 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. When the Nazi's came to power in Germany, like so many of his modern contemporaries, Kirchner's oil paintings were removed from public exhibit, labelled as 'degenerate' art. The distress this caused him, was allegedly one of the causes of his suicide in 1938.

Like Modigliani, Kirchner was a true bohemian. His studio was a place where social conventions were overthrown, where there was frequent nudity and casual love-making. Rather than using professional models, he chose models from his neighbourhood and social circle. His impact on modern art in the 20th century should not be underestimated. Along with members of the Blue Rider Group, Der Brucke was fundamental to the establishment of the school of Expressionism. The English art movement, Stuckism, established in 1999, based their principles of using paint for communicating emotion on early German Expressionism. In 1992, The National Gallery of Art in Washington held a major Kirchner exhibition, and in 2006 his painting Street Scene, Berlin sold for $38 million.

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