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Lot Essay
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner occupies an important position in any survey of 20th Century German art. A leader amongst his contemporaries he displayed a passionate desire for personal expression through art, whether painting, printmaking, or sculpture. His life is marked with numerous events of triumph and defeat, celebration and tragedy
In 1905 Kirchner joined forces with three other young students Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and together they sought to reinvigorate art with freedom, authenticity, and an expressive force. They called their group Brücke, probably inspired by a line in Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), which describes mankind as a bridge crossing over to a higher ideal. Setting up communal studios in Dresden, the Brücke artists became a close-knit, somewhat isolated group, in which idealism and enthusiasm and full-time commitment to painting and printmaking could be measured by their extraordinary output. The group's artistic freedom manifested itself stylistically in contorted lines and exaggerated forms, intense colours, and flattened anti-illusionistic perspective. Their subject matter came from the environment they saw around them: views of city life, landscapes, portraits of friends, later with circus and music hall scenes and above all, nudes.
In 1906 the initial members sought to widen their small audience and to bring their new artistic approach to the attention of a wider public. For an annual subscription of twelve marks a 'passive' member (as opposed to an 'active' member ie. a working artist) would receive a membership card, an annual report and a presentation of three or four prints - the so-called Jahresmappe. Initially they combined prints by several members of the group, but by 1909 the portfolios had become single-artist publications. A total of seven portfolios were issued between 1906 and 1912, and they stand as the essential testament and documents of the Brücke movement.
The group's fifth portfolio, Brücke V., published in 1910 was devoted to Kirchner, the most profilic printmaker among the German Expressionists. Printmaking complemented Kirchner's artistic goals perfectly - he was a great experimenter, profoundly interested in the technical aspects and printed each impression himself. "There is no greater joy than watching the printer's roller the first time it moves across the woodblock, which you have just finished carving and observing whether the desired effect has come about ... In no way you can get to know an artist better than through his graphics".
The portfolio contains three prints by Kirchner and a cover by another founder member Erich Heckel. The three prints selected for inclusion highlight three important aspects of Kirchner's career at that point. In 1908 the artist paid his first visit to the Baltic island of Fehmarn, and later the following year to the Moritzburger Lakes. These encounters with nature prompted an evolution in his drawing style that he later called 'hieroglyphic'. "Hieroglyphic in the sense that it reduced the forms of nature to simple, surface forms to suggest their significance to the spectator' - an assessment that perfectly describes the suggestive Drei Badende an den Moritzburger Seen (Dube 69), the only drypoint in the portfolio.
At the same time Kirchner was deeply interested with art from the South Seas, a passion he shared with other members of the group and most famously with Paul Gauguin. This longing for the natural harmony between man and nature is characterised in the fine colour woodcut Mit Schilf werfende Badende (D.160).
The quintessential frenzied image of the Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock (D.141) an unforgettable masterpiece of Kirchner's printed oeuvre, exemplifies another main motif - women and the life of the city. The composition, a synonym for dynamism and energy shows in a simplistic but powerful language the mastery of Kirchner and his great affinity to printmaking.
Brücke portfolios are extremely rare. The ravages of two wars, the Nazi campaign against degenerate art, and the passage of nearly 100 years during much of which Expressionism was almost totally disregarded means that very few of the individual prints have survived. Even rarer is it to find a portfolio complete, in almost perfect condition. The fact that this particular example comes directly from the collection of an early passive member of the group makes it a very special object indeed.
In 1905 Kirchner joined forces with three other young students Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and together they sought to reinvigorate art with freedom, authenticity, and an expressive force. They called their group Brücke, probably inspired by a line in Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), which describes mankind as a bridge crossing over to a higher ideal. Setting up communal studios in Dresden, the Brücke artists became a close-knit, somewhat isolated group, in which idealism and enthusiasm and full-time commitment to painting and printmaking could be measured by their extraordinary output. The group's artistic freedom manifested itself stylistically in contorted lines and exaggerated forms, intense colours, and flattened anti-illusionistic perspective. Their subject matter came from the environment they saw around them: views of city life, landscapes, portraits of friends, later with circus and music hall scenes and above all, nudes.
In 1906 the initial members sought to widen their small audience and to bring their new artistic approach to the attention of a wider public. For an annual subscription of twelve marks a 'passive' member (as opposed to an 'active' member ie. a working artist) would receive a membership card, an annual report and a presentation of three or four prints - the so-called Jahresmappe. Initially they combined prints by several members of the group, but by 1909 the portfolios had become single-artist publications. A total of seven portfolios were issued between 1906 and 1912, and they stand as the essential testament and documents of the Brücke movement.
The group's fifth portfolio, Brücke V., published in 1910 was devoted to Kirchner, the most profilic printmaker among the German Expressionists. Printmaking complemented Kirchner's artistic goals perfectly - he was a great experimenter, profoundly interested in the technical aspects and printed each impression himself. "There is no greater joy than watching the printer's roller the first time it moves across the woodblock, which you have just finished carving and observing whether the desired effect has come about ... In no way you can get to know an artist better than through his graphics".
The portfolio contains three prints by Kirchner and a cover by another founder member Erich Heckel. The three prints selected for inclusion highlight three important aspects of Kirchner's career at that point. In 1908 the artist paid his first visit to the Baltic island of Fehmarn, and later the following year to the Moritzburger Lakes. These encounters with nature prompted an evolution in his drawing style that he later called 'hieroglyphic'. "Hieroglyphic in the sense that it reduced the forms of nature to simple, surface forms to suggest their significance to the spectator' - an assessment that perfectly describes the suggestive Drei Badende an den Moritzburger Seen (Dube 69), the only drypoint in the portfolio.
At the same time Kirchner was deeply interested with art from the South Seas, a passion he shared with other members of the group and most famously with Paul Gauguin. This longing for the natural harmony between man and nature is characterised in the fine colour woodcut Mit Schilf werfende Badende (D.160).
The quintessential frenzied image of the Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock (D.141) an unforgettable masterpiece of Kirchner's printed oeuvre, exemplifies another main motif - women and the life of the city. The composition, a synonym for dynamism and energy shows in a simplistic but powerful language the mastery of Kirchner and his great affinity to printmaking.
Brücke portfolios are extremely rare. The ravages of two wars, the Nazi campaign against degenerate art, and the passage of nearly 100 years during much of which Expressionism was almost totally disregarded means that very few of the individual prints have survived. Even rarer is it to find a portfolio complete, in almost perfect condition. The fact that this particular example comes directly from the collection of an early passive member of the group makes it a very special object indeed.