Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker. He was one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-century art. Kirchner volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a breakdown and was discharged. His work was branded as "degenerate" by the Nazis in 1937 and more than 600 of his works were sold or destroyed.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in Aschaffenburg, in Kingdom of Bavaria. His parents were of Prussian descent and his mother Maria Elise née Franke (1851–1928) was a descendant of the Huguenots, a fact to which Kirchner often referred. As Kirchner's father, chemical engineer, design engineer, and inventor in the field of papermaking Ernst Kirchner (1847–1921) searched for a job, the family moved frequently. Kirchner attended schools in Frankfurt and in Perlen near Lucerne, until his father earned the position of Professor of Paper Sciences at the College of Technology in Chemnitz in 1892, where Kirchner attended secondary school.
From 1890, Kirchner attended the Realgymnasium in Chemnitz and made his first attempts at woodcut printing under his father's guidance. He also received private instruction in watercolor painting.
During a school trip to Nuremberg in 1898, young Ernst Ludwig saw the printing blocks for early woodcuts and incunabula at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and was inspired by the art of Albrecht Dürer to become a painter himself. He later wrote that this experience was decisive in shaping his goal of renewing German art.
Although Kirchner's parents encouraged his artistic career they also wanted him to complete his formal education. In 1901, he began studying architecture at the Royal Saxon Polytechnicum in Dresden (now TU Dresden). The institution provided a wide range of studies in addition to architecture, such as freehand drawing, perspective drawing and the historical study of art. While in attendance, he became close friends with Fritz Bleyl, whom Kirchner met during the first term. They discussed art together and also studied nature, having a radical outlook in common.
Kirchner continued studies at the Polytechnic School of Munich and the Debschitz-Schule, art school run by Wilhelm von Debschitz and Heinrich Obrist, in Munich from 1903 to 1904, returning to Dresden in 1905 to complete his degree with his final diploma examination and turned exclusively to painting.
In 1905, Kirchner, along with Fritz Bleyl and two other architecture students, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, founded the artists group Die Brücke ("The Bridge"). From then on, he committed himself to art. The group aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. They responded both to past artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and
Lucas Cranach the Elder, as well as contemporary international avant-garde movements. As part of the affirmation of their national heritage, they revived older media, particularly woodcut prints.
Their group had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the 20th century and created the style of Expressionism. The group met initially in Kirchner's first studio, which had previously been a butcher's shop. Bleyl described it as "that of a real bohemian, full of paintings lying all over the place, drawings, books and artist's materials — much more like an artist's romantic lodgings than the home of a well-organised architecture student".
Kirchner's studio became a venue which overthrew social conventions to allow casual love-making and frequent nudity. Group life-drawing sessions took place using models from the social circle, rather than professionals, and choosing quarter-hour poses to encourage spontaneity. Bleyl described one such model, Isabella, a fifteen-year-old girl from the neighbourhood, as "a very lively, beautifully built, joyous individual, without any deformation caused by the silly fashion of the corset and completely suitable to our artistic demands, especially in the blossoming condition of her girlish buds."
A group manifesto written by Kirchner in 1906 stated that "Everyone who reproduces, directly and without illusion, whatever he senses the urge to create, belongs to us". In September and October 1906, the first group exhibition was held, focused on the female nude, in the showroom of K.F.M. Seifert and Co. in Dresden.
In 1906, he met milliner Doris Große, who was his favoured model until 1911. Between 1907 and 1911, he stayed during the summer at the Moritzburg lakes and on the island of Fehmarn (which he revisited until 1914) with other Brücke members; his work featured the female nude in natural settings. In 1911, he moved to Berlin, where he founded a private art school, MIUM-Institut, in collaboration with Max Pechstein with the aim of promulgating "Moderner Unterricht im Malen" (modern teaching of painting). This was not a success and closed the following year, when he also began a relationship with dancer Erna Schilling that lasted the rest of his life.
In 1913, his writing of Chronik der Brücke (Brücke chronicle) led to the ending of the group. At this time, he established an individual identity with his first solo exhibition, which took place at the Essen Folkwang Museum. During the next two years, he painted a series of "Straßenszenen" (street scenes) showing the streets of Berlin, with the central characters of street walkers.
Military service and mental breakdown, 1914-1916
At the onset of the First World War in September 1914, Kirchner volunteered for military service at the age of 35. In July 1915 he was sent to Halle an der Saale to train as a driver in the reserve unit of the 75th Mansfeld Field Artillery Regiment. Kirchner's riding instructor, Professor Hans Fehr, arranged for Kirchner to be discharged after a mental breakdown. Kirchner then returned to Berlin and continued to work, producing many paintings including Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1915). In December 1915 he was admitted to Dr. Oskar Kohnstamm's sanatorium in Königstein (Taunus), where he was diagnosed with alcoholism and addiction to Veronal.
In a letter to Dr. Karl Hagemann, a friend and patron, Kirchner wrote: "After lengthy struggles I now find myself here for a time to put my mind into some kind of order. It is a terribly difficult thing, of course, to be among strangers so much of the day. But perhaps I'll be able to see and create something new. For the time being, I would like more peace and absolute seclusion. Of course, I long more and more for my work and my studio. Theories may be all very well for keeping a spiritual balance, but they are grey and shadowy compared with work and life".
Throughout 1916, Kirchner periodically returned to Berlin for a few weeks at a time to continue his work at his studio; he also produced a series of oil paintings, and many drawings, during his stays in Königstein. After an exhibition of his work at the gallery of Ludwig Schames, in Frankfurt am Main, in October 1916, Kirchner sold many works and began to do well financially. In December, he suffered from a nervous breakdown and was admitted to Dr. Edel's sanatorium in Berlin-Charlottenburg.
In 1917, at the suggestion of Eberhard Grisebach, Helene Spengler invited Kirchner to Davos. He arrived on 19 January 1917. There he visited an exhibition of Ferdinand Hodler's paintings. His visit to Davos coincided with a spell of exceptionally cold weather, and he returned to Berlin after only ten days.