An introduction to the German Expressionist painter, graphic artist and sculptor who, at the turn of the 19th century, was Germany's most influential artist.

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, widely seen as a metaphor for modernity itself through their depiction of life in a major metropolis. Kirchner moved from Dresden to Berlin in 1911, and it was in this teeming city, immersed in its vitality, decadence and underlying sense of danger posed by the imminent World War I, that he created the Street Scenes in a sustained burst of creative energy and ambition between 1913 and 1915. As the most extensive consideration of these paintings in English, this richly illustrated volume examines the creative process undertaken by the artist as he explores his theme through various mediums, and presents the major body of related charcoal drawings, pen-and-ink studies, pastels, etchings, woodcuts and lithographs he created in addition to the paintings. The volume also investigates the significance of the streetwalker as a primary motif, and provides insight on the series in the context of Kirchner's wider oeuvre.

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.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's move from Dresden to Berlin in 1911 marked a turning point in his art. Under the influence of the most modern metropolis in Europe, during the years between 1912 and 1915 the artist created works whose exaggerated and condensed styl e could be regarded as a true metaphor for the attitude to life during the early years of the twentieth century. During this time of rapid change the capital of the German Empire promised progress and countless opportunities, but also danger and profound e xistential fear. The city was not only the centre of industry, which continued to grow unchecked, but also of increasing motorised traffic and, with three million inhabitants, it was the biggest "city of tenement blocks" in Europe. But Berlin was also the metropolis of the arts, of hedonism, prostitution and accordingly of a sexuality that could be lived to the full as never before. Berlin vibrated with challenging energy and intellectual challenges. In this melting pot of opportunities and risks Kirchner c reated pictures of breathless, existential directness which he launched unerringly at the conventions of the Wilhelminian age. The main area of focus of the publication will lie on this dialectic and the resulting tension. It will reproduce Kirchner's grea test masterpieces, and in order to demonstrate the profound changes in his style, a representative selection of his early works from Dresden will also be shown alongside the paintings, drawing s and prints from the time in Berlin.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is one of the best-known painters and sculptors of German Expressionism. As co-founder of the artists' group the Brücke at the beginning of the twentieth century, he is also one of the most important artists of the avant-garde. His life and work were deeply shaped by his search for the 'exotic' and 'primordial', for foreign lands and cultures. What resulted were brilliantly colourful, imaginative artworks in which he create foreign worlds. This book traces the stages of Kirchner's life and artistic development. It illustrates how, by synthesising a great variety of influences from non-European cultures, the artists achieved an intermingling of art, life and work that manifested itself as 'exotic' Gesamtkunstwerk not only in his work but also in his live-in studios.

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.