Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Anders Ehlers Dam, Uwe Fleckner, Anne Gregersen, Jill Lloyd, Carsten Thau.
In exile in Davos, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), cofounder of the Die Brücke group, managed to produce a stunning cycle of pictures before committing suicide at the age of 58. Nature, specifically the breathtaking mountains of the region, appears as an intoxicating space in intense colors where the dignity of the human figure is negotiated in a dynamic aesthetic.
This colorful volume is the first to allot critical appraisal of one of the most important chapters in Kirchner’s imposing later work. Kirchner’s bright fiery compositions are here placed in conjunction with another expressionist living in self-imposed exile during the same years: Danish painter J.F. Willumsen (1863–1958). The juxtaposition of Kirchner and Willumsen poses a visually persuasive and entirely new perspective on an intense, colorful and vital vision of painting from the 1910s–1930s.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Heide Skowranek, Karin Schick. Text by Christoph Krekel, Karin Schick, Heide Skowranek, et al.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) dazzled prewar Germany with his electrifying color palette and impassioned, jagged brushwork. Kirchner depicted Berlin and the majestic mountainscapes of Davos with an intensity never before seen in German art, and when we think of his paintings it is this sense of expressive force that first comes to mind (after all, Kirchner’s Die Brücke group made their name with the declaration that they would express “what urges them to create, directly and without adulteration”). It is perhaps for this reason that Kirchner is more rarely considered as the careful technician he was. Kirchner’s Paintings: No One Else Has These Colors provides the first treatment of the artist’s working process, his methods and techniques, with evaluations of his comments on color schemes and painting techniques and scientific analyses of individual works.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), a founding member of the Die Brücke group and one of Expressionism's most important artists, has had a lasting influence on classic modern art. Now, the Städel Museum is honoring the work of this painter, graphic artist, and sculptor by presenting the first large-scale retrospective in Germany in 30 years. The original audio guide for this important exhibition and its slim companion volume of color plates contain extensive descriptions of about 35 works from all of the artist's creative phases. Starting with the Kirchner collection at the Städel Museum , whose numerous masterpieces make it one of the most substantial in the world, the publication also contains key works from prominent international museums, providing a vivid introduction to Kirchner's eventful life and his oeuvre.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Felix Krämer. Text by Javier Arnaldo, Max Hollein, Sandra Oppmann, et al.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted city life as a joyous, bustling pageant, a sophisticated swirl of desiring bodies and colorful urbanity, giving Germany an energetic iconography for the glory days of modernity. One of the four founders of Die Brücke (The Bridge), Kirchner drew on German Renaissance art to conjure expressive exaggerations of face and posture, and brought to landscape painting a city-dweller's zest, imbuing tranquil scenery with riotous energy. Coinciding with a Kirchner retrospective at the Städel Museum--the first to be seen in Germany in 30 years--this massive volume surveys the artist's several creative phases and genres. It features the famous nudes made during the Die Brücke era, his classic scenes of frenetic Berlin city life and Swiss mountainscapes from Davos, along with lesser-known canvases, works on paper and sculpture. With essays by renowned art historians, this definitive monograph offers fresh perspective on the continued relevance of Kirchner. Born in Bavaria, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) studied architecture in Dresden, where he met the young painter Fritz Beyl. With Beyl, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, Kirchner founded the group known as Die Brücke. Casting aside the then-prevalent academic style of painting, Kirchner and his friends allied themselves with early Renaissance artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Cranach the Elder, and revived older media such as woodcut printing. Kirchner briefly saw army service in the First World War, but suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged. In the interbellum years Kirchner's reputation grew enormously, until the Nazi regime branded his art degenerate: in 1937 over 600 of his works were sold or destroyed. In 1938, despairing of this destruction and the general political climate, Kirchner committed suicide.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Text by Deborah Wye.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's remarkable series of paintings known as the Berlin Street Scenes is a highpoint of the artist's work and a milestone of German Expressionism. Kirchner moved from Dresden to Berlin in 1911, and it was there, immersed in the vitality of a teeming city and under the looming shadow of imminent world war, that he created the Street Scenes in a burst of creative energy and ambition. Berlin was at this time undergoing rapid growth, and as Kirchner absorbed the crowds and energy of city life, his work responded with acute perspective, jagged brushstrokes and searing color. As the most extensive consideration of these paintings in English, this richly illustrated volume examines the creative process undertaken by the artist as he explored his themes through various media and presents a major body of related work including drawings, pen-and-ink studies, pastels, etchings, woodcuts and lithographs. It also investigates the significance of the streetwalker as the dominant motif of this series, and provides insight on its relationship to Kirchner's wider oeuvre. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) was one of German Expressionism's foremost practitioners. His painterly aesthetic was formed within the Brüche group, in Dresden, where he was one among a number of artists rebelling against bourgeois life and the stale conventions of the academy. Kirchner made his Street Scenes series immediately following the dissolution of Brüche. Today he is increasingly recognized as one of the major figures in the early development of Modern art.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Essays by Gottfried Boehm, Lucius Grisebach, Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Birgit Gudat, Wolfgang Henze, and Michael F. Zimmermann.
The German-born Expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) first came to Davos in 1917 on a rest cure. His body and mind devastated by the war, mountain life promised recovery and proved extremely fruitful artistically. If at first Kirchner met his new environment with the same nervous brushstrokes and perspectivist escalations found in his Berlin street scenes, his inner turmoil soon subsided, producing calmer and stronger bands of pigment and later an exalted experience of nature. New imagery resulted as well, going beyond Kirchner's primary focus on landscapes to include interiors and a series of self-portraits and figure paintings of rural neighbors. With its selection of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, photographs and tapestry from European and American private collections, this monograph shows how Kirchner, after Segantini and Hodler, became the third great painter of the Alps. Life in the Mountains finishes with works from the years 1925-26, when Kirchner returned to Germany, leaving his union with the natural life behind.
Published by Royal Academy Publications. Text by Jill Lloyd.
The first substantial publication on Kirchner in English for thirty years, this catalogue accompanies the first major exhibition in Britain of this most brilliant and intense founder of the Die Brucke school. Presenting a focused display of the artist's best work from 1905-1915, his most creative and innovative period, a key theme of the book will be to consider how, perhaps of all the artists in the early modern period, Kirchner was most responsive to the underlying tension between nature and civilisation that fascinated his generation. This preoccupation culminates in the Berlin street scenes where Kirchner combines elegance with tribal rawness to reveal the potential wildness of the crowd. Containing essays by leading Kirchner and Die Brucke scholars, and impeccable reproductions of these too rarely seen works, this publication reaffirms not only Kirchner's importance within German Expressionism, but also his key position in early twentieth-century art.
Kirchner's Painting: No One Else Has These Colors
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Art to Hear Series
Kirchner
Kirchner and the Berlin Street
Ernst Luwig Kirchner: Mountain Life
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: The Dresden and Berlin Years