German1880–1938
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
A founder of Die Brücke in Dresden, who painted city streets and figures in harsh colour and jagged forms. He later lived in the Swiss mountains near Davos.
A life in paintings
- 1880Born
- 1905Die Brücke is founded
Four architecture students in Dresden start an artists’ group that becomes the core of German Expressionism.
- 1906Was influenced by Edvard MunchDresden
Munch's prints deeply influenced Die Brücke, the Dresden group Kirchner co-founded in 1905; Munch's 1906 Dresden exhibition is credited with pushing their woodcuts toward rougher, harsher, wood-grained forms. Kirchner named Munch and Van Gogh as touchstones.
Source: Britannica - 1913The Armory Show
The International Exhibition of Modern Art opens in New York, then travels to Chicago and Boston, giving many Americans their first sight of European modern art.
Source: Wikipedia - 1914The First World War begins
War breaks out. Kirchner volunteers but suffers a breakdown and is discharged; he later moves to Switzerland.
- 1919
- 1927
- 1933The Nazis close the Bauhaus
Modern art is attacked in Germany as ‘degenerate’. Klee returns to Switzerland and Kandinsky moves to Paris.
- 1938Died
Kirchner cited Van Gogh (shown in Dresden in 1905) together with Munch as the painters who showed him how to turn inner conflict into colour and form.
Circles
Exhibition · New York, Chicago, Boston · 1913
Armory Show (1913)
The International Exhibition of Modern Art that introduced European modern art to American audiences, shown in New York, Chicago and Boston in 1913. Members here are artists whose work was included, living or not.
- Alfred Sisley
- Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso
- André Derain
- Camille Pissarro
- Childe Hassam
- Claude Monet
- Edgar Degas
- Édouard Manet
- Edvard Munch
- Edward Hopper
- Ferdinand Hodler
- Fernand Léger
- George Wesley Bellows
- Georges Seurat
- Gustave Courbet
- Henri Matisse
- Henri Rousseau
- Henri-Edmond Cross
- Joseph Stella
- Marsden Hartley
- Mary Cassatt
- Maurice Prendergast
- Paul Cézanne
- Paul Signac
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
- Robert Delaunay
- Vincent van Gogh
- Wassily Kandinsky
- William Glackens
Group · Dresden, later Berlin · 1905
Die Brücke
German Expressionist group founded in Dresden in 1905 by Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Bleyl; deeply influenced by Munch's prints.