Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Selected Expressive Woodcuts, 1906–1937
«In contrast to the flood of digital images, the old medium of woodcutting has a backbone: woodcutting is powerful, clear and direct. Every cut is a decision. At the beginning of the 20th century, the expressionists celebrated it as an experimental means of expression. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) in particular, the co-founder of the artists' association Die Brücke, considered his prints to be on a par with painting. In the woodcut, many of his handprints are unique.»
In contrast to the flood of digital images, the old medium of woodcutting has a backbone: woodcutting is powerful, clear and direct.
«In contrast to the flood of digital images, the old medium of woodcutting has a backbone: woodcutting is powerful, clear and direct. Every cut is a decision. At the beginning of the 20th century, the expressionists celebrated it as an experimental means of expression. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) in particular, the co-founder of the artists' association Die Brücke, considered his prints to be on a par with painting. In the woodcut, many of his handprints are unique.»
These are the introduing words to the milestone exhibition «Kirchner Holzschnitte» at Kunsthalle Bremen (09.11.2024–09.03.2025) with more than 180 artwokrs on display. Our gallery would like to follows this wonderful focus on Kichner's woodcuts and presents its own selection of high-calibre prints by the artist.
As the administrators of Ernst Ludwig Kichner's estate with expertise since 1946, our gallery is able to offer a wide range of woodcuts from all the artist's creative phases. Selected for this viewing room are nine pieces in chronological order, starting from 1906 with the beginnings of the Brücke artists' group, through the early Davos years from 1917 to the development of the "new style" in the late 1920s and the late works shortly before the artist's death in 1938.
1906 | Sunset in the forest – Kirchner's beginnings
This woodcut was created at the beginning of Kirchner's artistic career. Stylistically, the woodcut is still very close to the designs of his architecture studies, which were created in the spirit of Art Nouveau.
As Kirchner took up the motif of the sunset several times, it seems to have had a deeper meaning. It may symbolised the completion of his studies, marking the end of a period in his life and a break with his parents' expectations. He may tried to process this artistically in this work.
Sonnenuntergang im Walde, 1906, 13 x 18,7 cm on 12,3 x 15,9 cm (1 of 2 known impressions)
1911 | Reclining nude – at the Brücke-Studio, Dresden
Dodo (Doris Grosse), Kirchner's partner, who did not want to come to Berlin with him in the autumn of 1911 and whom Kirchner always mourned, is presumed to be here, stretched out on a bed in the Brücke studio at Berliner Strasse 80 in Dresden. Behind her are the heads of two wood-carved figures by Kirchner. The influence of African sculpture is also noticeable here in the forms of the woodcut, creating a wonderfully intense atmosphere.
Liegender Akt, 1911, 20 x 27.8 cm on 35,5 x 44 cm, (1 of 2 known impressions)
1918 | Stafelalp by moonlight – first years in Davos, Switzerland
In 1915/16, Kirchner increasingly lost precise control over his hands as his illness and morphine addiction progressed. This resulted in nervously vibrating, more or less parallel line layers. In this woodcut, this special and particularly conditional technique culminates in a fascinating moonlit night in the midst of a series of woodcuts of the landscape and life on the Stafelalp, the seismogram of a sleepless night of the nervous, who had by no means yet overcome illness and addiction.
Stafelalp bei Mondschein, 1918, 31,3 x 38 cm on 43 x 52 cm (1 of 13 known impressions)
The series of stafelap woodcuts in the early years in Davos lead to the painting "Stafelalp beim Mondschein" (Stafelalp by moonlight) from 1919 (Gordon 583) - today in the collection of Museum Ostwall, Dortmund (Germany).
Stafelalp beim Mondschein, 1919, Oil on canvas, 138 x 200 cm (Museum Ostwall, Dortmund)
1920 | Man with a whip – Swiss mountain life
1920 marks the third year of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in the Swiss mountains. His work is influenced by the landscape but also by the mountain people, such as farmers and shepards he was portraying on a regular basis. At the same time far away from the art scene, Kirchner remained connected, having an important solo exhibition at Kunstsalon Schames in Frankfurt am Main. Ludwig Schames was Kirchner's art dealer in Frankfurt a. M. and showed major Kirchner exhibitions in 1916, 1919, 1920 and 1922.
Mann mit Peitsche, 1920, 57 x 40 cm on 44,8 x 31,5 cm (1 of 5 known impressions)
1924 | The friends – Largest woodcut by ELK
Probably the largest woodcut ever created by Kirchner. Kirchner met his friends Albert Müller, painter, and Hermann Scherer, sculptor and painter, in Basel in 1923. They both soon came to Davos and worked together with him, becoming his best friends and his most important pupils with a high degree of independence. The human figure was the essential thing for him. Above all, he wanted to be a figure painter. Hence the tendency towards generalised titles.
Die Freunde, 1924, 84,7 x 54.7 cm on 94 x 63.7 cm (1 of 7 known impressions)
1928 | Pianist and Singer
‘Der Geiger Häusermann’ from 1927 (Gordon 870), “Sängerin am Piano” from 1930 (Gordon 943) and “Die Violinistin” from 1937 (Gordon 1012) form the series of paintings of pure music without dance, into which this woodcut fits.
Kirchner's woodcut has returned to a pure surface, sometimes lightened by purely parallel white lines, and to a cleanly cut line, even in undulating waves from the early days of Art Nouveau, as one might imagine.
Pianist und Sängerin, 1928, 55 x 42 cm on 45,3 x 35,3 cm (1 of 7 known impressions)
1930 | Kirchners "New Style"
In this woodcut Kirchner fully embraced his visionary “new style” he developed in the late 20s. Uniform areas alternate with parallel hatching. In the internal drawing, Kirchner cuts sweeping lines similar to the endless strokes of his contemporaneous drawing. Without abandoning the object that always bound him, Kirchner created fully valid forms of abstraction-création, indeed he went beyond this and became a forerunner of the design principles of the 1950s.
Kopf Alexander Müllegg, 1930, 42 x 35.5 on 54 x 42 cm (1 of 8 known impressions)
1936 | Bathing establishment in Basel, Switzerland
The theme of the nude remains important in Kirchners works until the very end. For once, no bathing nudes in the studio, at the Moritzburg ponds or on the Fehmarn beach, but in a bathing establishment. Sketchbook Skb 171 contains a series of drawings of this bathing establishment and also drawings of the rowers on the Rhine in Basel, which suggests that this (nude) bathing establishment was located in Basel, where nudist bathing is still permitted or is perceived today.
Badeanstalt, 1936, 50 x 37 on58,8 x 41,3 cm (1 of 5 known impressions)
1937 | The Sensations - a different year for Kirchner
The woodcut ‘The Sensations’ reflects this very different year for Kirchner. He sells in Switzerland, has his first major museum exhibition in the USA, even the MOMA gets in touch with him. He has a major exhibition at the Kunsthalle Basel, but the desired success fails to materialise: In Germany, his art is banned from museums and pilloried in the ‘Degenerate’ art exhibition.
Die Empfindungen, 1937, 50 x 36,9 on 60,5 x 43,5 cm (1 of 4 known impressions)
The woodcut on the left still shows enthusiasm, harking back to the Nietzschean adorant of the beginning of the bridge, while higher up on the right is despair, below it, further to the right, receding surprise and, at the top right, pleading questions.
Kirchner dies one year later on June 15th 1938 in Frauenkirch, Davos, Switzerland.
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Source: Kirchner, Woodcuts, Kunsthalle Bremen, 09.11.2024 – 09.03.2025
Link: www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/en/view/exhibitions/exb-page/kirchner-woodcuts
