On ribbed chamois laid paper. One of 2 known impressions by the artist. With the stamp of the brother, Walter Kirchner, and the number ‘334’ on the verso.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 49. There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:

‘In the foreground a stand of bare trees, in the background the dark edge of a fir wood above which the sun sets, dissolving the foreground branches in its circumference by its light. Framing line.’

Kirchner depicts a sunset in the forest in a romantic manner. Numerous trees rise into the sky, their branching, ornamental branches seeming to begin at the same height as the mountain range indicated in the background. Almost in the centre of the picture, the last sunlight glows over the mountain hills. The strong black and white contrast emphasises the dusk, but also lends the depiction a mysterious quality.

Remarks by the gallery:
Kirchner's woodcut was created at the beginning of his artistic career. In 1905, he had graduated as an architect and founded the artists' association “Brücke” with his fellow students Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Stylistically, the woodcut is still very close to the designs of his studies, which were created in the spirit of Art Nouveau. Due to the framing line of the composition, the work is also conceivable as decoration for a larger interior design.

As Kirchner took up the motif of the sunset several times at this time, it seems to have had a deeper meaning for him. He may have been symbolising the completion of his studies, which marked the end of a period in his life as well as a break with his parents' expectations. He may have tried to process this artistically in his woodcut.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 168. There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:

‘Naked, reclining woman in full figure, the head in the upper right corner of the picture, the feet of the half-drawn and spread legs at the left edge of the picture. She is lying on her back with the r. half of her body slightly upright. It is lying on its back with the right half of its body slightly raised and holding its right hand on its left shoulder; beneath the figure is a blanket, the corners of which depict grimacing heads.’

Remarks by the gallery:
Dodo (Doris Grosse), Kirchner's partner in his last years in Dresden, 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, at the top centre and left, are the heads of two wood-carved figures, possibly ‘Hockende, Kopf nach links geneigt’, Henze 1910/14, on the left and ‘Stehende of hoher Plinthe’, Henze 1910/24, in the centre. The influence of African sculpture is also noticeable here in the forms of the woodcut, creating a wonderfully intense atmosphere.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 345
There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:

‘A jumbled tangle of white strokes and patches with dark areas, in which roofs and walls of huts, now and then also the hint of a fir tree, stand in the uncertain light of the moonlight. The course of the terrain goes from top left to bottom right; in the BE top left intersecting hatching of light cuts. In the sky the crescent moon.’

Further examples in the following collections: Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern; Kirchner Museum Davos; The British Museum London.

Remarks by the gallery:
In 1915/16, Kirchner increasingly lost precise control over his hands as his illness and morphine addiction progressed. Nevertheless, he worked intensively, but his brush, pen and pencil strokes increasingly became ‘strokes’; the parts of the woodcuts that were to remain white he did not cut into the wood, but increasingly ‘tore’ them with his foot. 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, which was to culminate in the grandiose colour woodcut Winter Moonlit Night 1919, the seismogram of a sleepless night of the nervous, who had by no means yet overcome illness and addiction.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 404
There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:

‘Tall figure in full-length: the body is bent back slightly to the left. The l. raised hand holds the short whip-stick, the cord of which snakes through the air behind the neck. The feet stand near the BE on the right and below on a slope; to the left downwards several mountain houses with high chimney. Between the legs the small figure of a seated man appears.’

Collections: Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach. - Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen a. Rh.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 505.
There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:
‘The quite large figures of two men facing each other in full figure: the one standing on the right (from the side, to the left) puts the other's (from the side, to the right) r. hand around his neck on his shoulder. Hand around the neck on the shoulder. In the background mountains.

Further examples in the following collections: Los Angeles, UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum; Frankfurt Städel Museum; Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Künste; Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung.

Remarks by the gallery:
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. However, much to Kirchner's grief, both died after just a few years, Albert Müller on 14 December 1926 and Hermann Scherer on 13 May 1927, one of the great disappointments in the life of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who had placed such high hopes in them as successors to his work. The importance he attached to the two friends is expressed not only in this very large-format woodcut, but also in the almost life-size painting and the equally large painted wooden sculpture of the same composition that were created at the same time.

As is usually the case with Kirchner, the figures depicted extend from the lower to the upper edge of the picture, but here for once they are not overlapped by them. The human figure was the essential thing for him. Above all, he wanted to be a figure painter. Hence the tendency towards generalised titles. Neither in the original title nor in the description he wrote together with Gustav Schiefler do the names of his friends appear, even though they were so important to him. His art was intended to be of general significance, not an episode.

Cf. the painting ‘Die Freunde (Albert Müller und Hermann Scherer)’, 1924/1925, Gordon 0763, private collection, and the sculpture ‘Die Freunde (Albert Müller und Hermann Scherer)’ Henze 1924/08, Kunstmuseum Basel, as well as several drawings.

On chamois imitation Japan. One of 7 prints by the artist known to date. 45.3 x 35.3 on 55 x 42 cm.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: no longer with Schiefler.

Further copies in the following collections: Cambridge, Harvard Collections, purchase Gray Fund; National Gallery Washington, Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection.
‘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.

A high pathos fills the pianist on the left and the singer on the right. He grips the keys fiercely and leans towards her devotedly.

On imitation Japan. One of 5 prints by the artist known to date. 50 x 37 on 58.8 x 41.3 cm. With the estate stamp with the inscription ‘H Da/Bf 8 II D’ in India ink and the numbers ‘K 5459’, ‘C 3513’ in pencil on the verso.

Earlier catalogues raisonnés: No longer with Schiefler.

Further copies in the following collections: National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Creating universally valid forms, depictions and also content from observed scenes, people, movements, activities, landscapes, flowers and trees was also a basic principle of Kirchner's art. Of central importance to Kirchner was the relationship between the sexes, which led him from as early as 1915 to more allegorical compositions, for example in the paintings of that year ‘Der Mann’ 1915 and ‘Tanz zwischen den Frauen’ (Gordon 439, Nachlass des Künstlers, 443, Pinakothek der Moderne Munich). At the end of the series of this theme in Kirchner's oeuvre is the ‘Zweimeterbild’ from 1937 (Gordon 1004, whereabouts unknown). 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. 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.