Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
German, 1880–1938
Kirchner was born on 6 May 1880 in Aschaffenburg to an upper-middle-class family. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Saxony in Dresden, following his father's wishes, and then enrolled at the Technische Hochschule (Technical School) in the Lehr- und Versuchatelier für Angewandte und Freie Kunst (Teaching and Experimental Studio for Applied and Fine Art) in Munich. There he was exposed to a variety of influences: the exoticism and primitivism of Art Nouveau, the art of Vasilij Kandinsky and his Phalanx group, Post-Impressionism, drawings by Rembrandt, and prints by Dürer. In 1904 Kirchner returned to Dresden to continue his study of architecture and began to paint with Erich Heckel. Within two years the two artists, along with Fritz Bleyl, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Emil Nolde had formed Die Brücke, an association that lasted until 1913.
From 1913 until 1915 Kirchner painted large street scenes of Berlin showing elegant and colorful young women caught up in the nervous, hectic activities of city life. In these Expressionist images, Kirchner abandoned his earlier fluid Art Nouveau style for the quick, broken crosshatchings and angular brushstrokes of his mature work.
The war years changed his artistic production and changed his life (see Main Text above). Partially cured, he settled on the Längmatte in 1918, and five years later on the Wildboden at the entrance of the Sertig-valley near Frauenkirch. His companion and executrix, Erna Schilling, took care of his Berlin studio.
Kirchner went on to have major exhibitions in Berlin (1921), Basel (1923), Berne (1933), and Detroit (1937). But from 1926 he suffered from depression, which worsened in 1937 when 639 of his works were confiscated from public collections; thirty-two were included in Hitler's Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition held in Munich. In despair about the political situation in Germany, his physical health, and overwhelming loneliness, Kirchner committed suicide on 15 June 1938. For a detailed biography, see Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880-1938(exh. cat., Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1980), pp. 46-74.
