Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

1880 - 1938 • German • Painter/Printmaker • Expressionist

"With a profound belief in growth, a belief in a new generation of creators and appreciators, we summon the younger generation-and as the youth which carries within it the future, we wish to provide ourselves with a sphere of activity opposed to the entrenched and established tendencies. Everyone belongs to us who portrays his creative impulses honestly and directly." - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

An architecture student in Dresden, Kirchner was one of the founders of Die BRUCKE. Although many influences of the period can be seen in his work, especially CUBIST volume and FAUVE color, it is German EXPRESSIONISM, and the sharp, jagged lines associated with MEDIEVAL German woodcuts (see WOODBLOCK), that is most strongly felt. Kirchner not only made woodcuts, but he also carved and painted wood sculptures. He is best known, however, for his paintings of upper-class men and women, bedecked in furs and top hats, who exude wickedness and an aura of transgressive sexuality. In Dodo and Her Brother (1908-20), for example, a combination of crass and acrid colors, roughly applied, shows Dodo holding her pink fan, in a black-gloved arm, over her pubic area. Her brother flashes a demonic grin, and the picture reeks with intimations of incest. As emotionally troubled as his paintings suggest, Kirchner suffered long crises of depression and illness that ended with his suicide in 1938.