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Lot Essay
The present picture is double sided and depicts two works executed at critical times in Kirchner's career. The Fehmarn landscape, Nackter Jüngling und Mädchen am Strand, was painted in 1913, the year that the publication of the Chronik der Brücke marked the dissolution of the Brücke group and the year that Kirchner exhibited his first painting in America (The Armory Show, New York). The Berlin studio picture, Zwei Akte im Raum was painted in 1914, the year that Kirchner's Berlin style reached full maturity and that perversely saw his career begin to decline as he was called up for military service and his many years of serious illness began. As Professor Presler has pointed out, it is most unusual to have two such major oils, painted in consecutive years, executed on the same canvas.
Zwei Akte im Raum depicts Erna and Gerda Schilling, two sisters who modelled for him regularly after his move to Berlin from Dresden in the autumn of 1911. Erna, whom Kirchner met on his arrival in Berlin, was to become his muse, lover and partner until his suicide in 1938. Indeed, she moved with him to Switzerland in 1917 and died in Davos in 1945, alone and without any wealth other than a large number of paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints by Kirchner which extraordinarily were little sought after by collectors. Gerda, her elder sister, stands in the foreground of the present oil with her distinctive hairstyle (a magnificent portrait of Gerda with this bobbed hair is housed in the Von der Heydt-Museums, Wuppertal). Little was known about Gerda's fate until recently when it was discovered that she died of an extreme case of syphilis in the Prussian Asylum for the Insane at Neuruppin in 1923, still in her thirties.
There exists a closely related oil of Gerda and Erna as well as several studies for the picture (see fig. 1). The related oil is also double-sided (G. 419/419v) but in it we see much less of Gerda and Erna sits on the studio sofa behind wearing a lace smock rather than appearing nude, as in the present picture. The painting also does not include the wonderful leopard stool of the present picture which features so frequently in contemporary photographs of Kirchner's bohemian Berlin studio. The stool, which was presumably carved and painted by Kirchner, also appears in works by other of members of the Brücke group, notably in Heckel's Mädchen mit Ananas (Dresden) of 1910 (see fig. 4).
The landscape was painted on the North Sea island of Fehmarn where Kirchner spent many happy summers executing nude studies very much in keeping with his earlier visits to Moritzburg, outside Dresden, with Heckel. In 1913 he took with him two students of the M.U.I.M. institute, Werner Gothein and Hans Gewecke, to teach them painting en plein air. Later the same summer Otto Mueller and his wife, Maschka, joined them on the island.
Of this period, Kirchner was to write "Ich lernte die letzte Einheit von Mensch und Natur zu gestalten. Die Farben wurden milder und reicher, die Formen strenger und ferner von der Naturform".
Discussing the likely figures in the painting, Professor Presler comments "Das Gemälde dürfe einen der jungen Maler, Hans Gewecke oder Werner Gothein zwischen den Steinen an der Steilküste im Südosten Fehmarns zeigen zusammen mit einer ihrer Gefährtinnen im Blätterrock. Vielleicht ist die weibliche Figur Catharina, eine bisher unbekannte, ungefähr zwanzigjährige Verwandte der Leuchtturmwärterfamilie, die des öfteren zu Besuch nach Staberhuk kam".
We are grateful to Professor Presler for his contribution to this catalogue entry.
Zwei Akte im Raum depicts Erna and Gerda Schilling, two sisters who modelled for him regularly after his move to Berlin from Dresden in the autumn of 1911. Erna, whom Kirchner met on his arrival in Berlin, was to become his muse, lover and partner until his suicide in 1938. Indeed, she moved with him to Switzerland in 1917 and died in Davos in 1945, alone and without any wealth other than a large number of paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints by Kirchner which extraordinarily were little sought after by collectors. Gerda, her elder sister, stands in the foreground of the present oil with her distinctive hairstyle (a magnificent portrait of Gerda with this bobbed hair is housed in the Von der Heydt-Museums, Wuppertal). Little was known about Gerda's fate until recently when it was discovered that she died of an extreme case of syphilis in the Prussian Asylum for the Insane at Neuruppin in 1923, still in her thirties.
There exists a closely related oil of Gerda and Erna as well as several studies for the picture (see fig. 1). The related oil is also double-sided (G. 419/419v) but in it we see much less of Gerda and Erna sits on the studio sofa behind wearing a lace smock rather than appearing nude, as in the present picture. The painting also does not include the wonderful leopard stool of the present picture which features so frequently in contemporary photographs of Kirchner's bohemian Berlin studio. The stool, which was presumably carved and painted by Kirchner, also appears in works by other of members of the Brücke group, notably in Heckel's Mädchen mit Ananas (Dresden) of 1910 (see fig. 4).
The landscape was painted on the North Sea island of Fehmarn where Kirchner spent many happy summers executing nude studies very much in keeping with his earlier visits to Moritzburg, outside Dresden, with Heckel. In 1913 he took with him two students of the M.U.I.M. institute, Werner Gothein and Hans Gewecke, to teach them painting en plein air. Later the same summer Otto Mueller and his wife, Maschka, joined them on the island.
Of this period, Kirchner was to write "Ich lernte die letzte Einheit von Mensch und Natur zu gestalten. Die Farben wurden milder und reicher, die Formen strenger und ferner von der Naturform".
Discussing the likely figures in the painting, Professor Presler comments "Das Gemälde dürfe einen der jungen Maler, Hans Gewecke oder Werner Gothein zwischen den Steinen an der Steilküste im Südosten Fehmarns zeigen zusammen mit einer ihrer Gefährtinnen im Blätterrock. Vielleicht ist die weibliche Figur Catharina, eine bisher unbekannte, ungefähr zwanzigjährige Verwandte der Leuchtturmwärterfamilie, die des öfteren zu Besuch nach Staberhuk kam".
We are grateful to Professor Presler for his contribution to this catalogue entry.