Ernst Ludwig KIRCHNER (1880-1938)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Germany II
Chronology : 1909 1910 1914 1915
The top 10 after conversion to GBP are narrated and illustrated by MyArtbroker.
See also : Germany II
Chronology : 1909 1910 1914 1915
The top 10 after conversion to GBP are narrated and illustrated by MyArtbroker.
Intro
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: A Psychiatric Perspective on His Life and Art
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), a founding member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, produced work deeply intertwined with his mental health struggles. His art often served as both a reflection of inner turmoil and a form of self-therapy, revealing themes of alienation, anxiety, erotic tension, and eventual attempts at serenity. Modern analyses link his style—characterized by jagged lines, distorted forms, and clashing colors—to psychological distress, including depression, substance dependence, and trauma.
Early Career and Pre-War Psychological Tension (1905–1914)
Kirchner's early works with Die Brücke emphasized liberation from societal norms, drawing from "primitive" art and bohemian lifestyles involving nudity and polyamory. His Berlin street scenes (1913–1915) capture urban alienation and eroticism, with angular figures and harsh colors conveying psychological unease in modern life.
These paintings reflect pre-war anxiety, with distorted perspectives symbolizing fragmented perception—possibly early signs of vulnerability to breakdown.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), a founding member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, produced work deeply intertwined with his mental health struggles. His art often served as both a reflection of inner turmoil and a form of self-therapy, revealing themes of alienation, anxiety, erotic tension, and eventual attempts at serenity. Modern analyses link his style—characterized by jagged lines, distorted forms, and clashing colors—to psychological distress, including depression, substance dependence, and trauma.
Early Career and Pre-War Psychological Tension (1905–1914)
Kirchner's early works with Die Brücke emphasized liberation from societal norms, drawing from "primitive" art and bohemian lifestyles involving nudity and polyamory. His Berlin street scenes (1913–1915) capture urban alienation and eroticism, with angular figures and harsh colors conveying psychological unease in modern life.
These paintings reflect pre-war anxiety, with distorted perspectives symbolizing fragmented perception—possibly early signs of vulnerability to breakdown.
1908 Frauenbildnis
2006 SOLD for £ 4.9M by Christie's
Founded in 1905 in Dresden, the Die Brücke group is contemporary to the French Fauvistes. Both support a new art made of flamboyant colors, raw lines and free compositions. Led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Die Brücke also appeals for a free life including unshamed full nudity, both in the apartments and studios and during summer holidays on sea shore. Some young women follow.
Frauenbildnis in weissem Kleid, painted by Kirchner in 1908, was lauded in period as an achievement of the group. An influence from the art of Edvard Munch is plausible.
With no nudity, the woman seated on the beach is an expression of merry life in impastos of strong colors. She turns her back to the seascape and keeps her face in the shadow of a large hat. She is Emmy, Kirchner's girlfriend at that time. A diminutive male at mid distance may be her brother. The scene is located in the Baltic island of Fehmarn.
The verso bears an Adam und Eva painted by Kirchner in 1911, also featuring the woman as the dominant character.
This double sided oil on canvas 125 x 125 cm was sold for £ 4.9M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on February 6, 2006, lot 10. The image of the recto is shared by Wikimedia.
Frauenbildnis in weissem Kleid, painted by Kirchner in 1908, was lauded in period as an achievement of the group. An influence from the art of Edvard Munch is plausible.
With no nudity, the woman seated on the beach is an expression of merry life in impastos of strong colors. She turns her back to the seascape and keeps her face in the shadow of a large hat. She is Emmy, Kirchner's girlfriend at that time. A diminutive male at mid distance may be her brother. The scene is located in the Baltic island of Fehmarn.
The verso bears an Adam und Eva painted by Kirchner in 1911, also featuring the woman as the dominant character.
This double sided oil on canvas 125 x 125 cm was sold for £ 4.9M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on February 6, 2006, lot 10. The image of the recto is shared by Wikimedia.
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1909 Im See badende Mädchen
2015 SOLD for $ 13.6M by Christie's
In the summer of 1909 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his Die Brücke fellow Erich Heckel managed for the first time to live their ideal Arcadian life of full nudity in nature, followed by their girlfriends and by models. That blissful experience was made at Moritzburg, a rural town with unfrequented lakes in the vicinity of Dresden.
Im See badende Mädchen features three young women in the nude. The pretty female standing in the forefront displays her tanned back and buttocks while her turned head reveals a proudly appealing gaze. The two other, one seated and one bathing, do not care with the artist friend out of field. Their green bodies are highlighted with flaming strokes of orange, yellow and red.
This oil in canvas 91 x 120 cm was misdated 1907 by the artist, desiring to deny a possible influence from the colors of the French Fauvistes exhibited at the beginning of 1909 by Cassirer in Berlin.
It was sold for $ 13.6M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 3A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Kirchner and his group had a similar summer time with no cloth at Moritzburg in the next two years.
Im See badende Mädchen features three young women in the nude. The pretty female standing in the forefront displays her tanned back and buttocks while her turned head reveals a proudly appealing gaze. The two other, one seated and one bathing, do not care with the artist friend out of field. Their green bodies are highlighted with flaming strokes of orange, yellow and red.
This oil in canvas 91 x 120 cm was misdated 1907 by the artist, desiring to deny a possible influence from the colors of the French Fauvistes exhibited at the beginning of 1909 by Cassirer in Berlin.
It was sold for $ 13.6M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 3A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Kirchner and his group had a similar summer time with no cloth at Moritzburg in the next two years.
1910 Dodo
2007 SOLD for $ 13M by Christie's
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was mad in love with Doris, kindly nicknamed Dodo, a shop girl in Dresden. He made her his muse, comparing her nude body with Cranach's Venus.
Dodo mit grossem Fächer features her standing in full nudity with an erotic appeal of the gaze reinforced by heavy make up. The left leg is starting a step forward. The half hidden figure on the back wall may be a pair in neo-primitive love matching the unrestrained lifestyle of the artist.
The drawing is stylized with flat colors in black contours from a Fauvist influence. The female form, not realistic in the short torso and narrow shoulders, cannot compare with Cranach. This near life size oil on canvas 152 x 74 cm painted in 1910 was sold for $ 13M by Christie's on May 9, 2007, lot 64. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Their affair terminated when the artist moved to Berlin in 1911.
Dodo mit grossem Fächer features her standing in full nudity with an erotic appeal of the gaze reinforced by heavy make up. The left leg is starting a step forward. The half hidden figure on the back wall may be a pair in neo-primitive love matching the unrestrained lifestyle of the artist.
The drawing is stylized with flat colors in black contours from a Fauvist influence. The female form, not realistic in the short torso and narrow shoulders, cannot compare with Cranach. This near life size oil on canvas 152 x 74 cm painted in 1910 was sold for $ 13M by Christie's on May 9, 2007, lot 64. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Their affair terminated when the artist moved to Berlin in 1911.
1911 Dresden (Das Boskett)
2012 SOLD for £ 7.3M by Sotheby's
Throughout Europe in the 1910s, groups of artists and intellectuals question the origin of mankind and the role of art. In Dresden, Die Brücke, led by Kirchner, has the ambition to be a bridge between past and present.
The present is the urban landscape that reflects modern life. The past, or the origin, is characterized by obsessive nudes with a primitivist sexuality. The group executes some masterpieces of wood engraving.
A gentle oil on canvas by Kirchner, 120 x 151 cm, has for theme the Albertplatz of Dresden. The characters are quiet and anonymous, like the walkers by Utrillo or Dufy. It was sold for £ 7.3M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Sotheby's on February 8, 2012, lot 39. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
It is indeed one of the last provincial cityscapes made by Kirchner before leaving for Berlin, a move that had so far-reaching consequences on his life and was so fruitful for the history of art. His anguished discovery of the communication difficulties in the anonymity of the big city will generate some masterpieces of expressionist art.
The present is the urban landscape that reflects modern life. The past, or the origin, is characterized by obsessive nudes with a primitivist sexuality. The group executes some masterpieces of wood engraving.
A gentle oil on canvas by Kirchner, 120 x 151 cm, has for theme the Albertplatz of Dresden. The characters are quiet and anonymous, like the walkers by Utrillo or Dufy. It was sold for £ 7.3M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Sotheby's on February 8, 2012, lot 39. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
It is indeed one of the last provincial cityscapes made by Kirchner before leaving for Berlin, a move that had so far-reaching consequences on his life and was so fruitful for the history of art. His anguished discovery of the communication difficulties in the anonymity of the big city will generate some masterpieces of expressionist art.
1912 Die Rache der Tänzerin
2021 SOLD for £ 7.1M by Christie's
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner moved to Berlin in the fall of 1911 to start a new career as the leader of Die Brücke. He was indeed horrified by the anonymity of the walkers in the streets but that does not mean that he was uncomfortable in his new life.
For a few years he had been captivated by cabarets and entertainment in Dresden. Berlin offered a night life in a much larger scale. He early took as models two statuesque cabaret dancers, the sisters Gerda and Erna Schilling.
In 1912 Erna posed for him in the nude, a theme which was another early interest for Kirchner. In 1913 she was the model for the risqué Tänzerin mit gehobenem Bein, a 66 cm high painted oakwood figure sold for $ 8M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 2 A. She will be the lifelong partner of the artist.
On June 30, 2021, Christie's sold for £ 7.1M an oil on canvas 100 x 75 cm painted in 1912, lot 17A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The title, Pantomime Reimann, indicates that it is part of a project for a programme for a risqué cabaret show operated by the then 22 years old Hans Reimann, for which watercolor sketches are also known. The subtitle, Die Rache des Tänzerin (the revenge of the dancer) is promising much excitement.
It stages a well dressed performer who is certainly one of the Schilling sisters. Towering like the Great Whore of the Apocalypse, she leans without compassion over a male admirer in tuxedo who is lying prone on the floor. An acrobat looks at the scene while a peeping viewer is only seen by his reflection in a mirror. The vivid colors are appealing for entering the show.
On terms of cabaret inspired art, some comparison may be made with Le Chahut painted by Seurat in 1889-1890.
For a few years he had been captivated by cabarets and entertainment in Dresden. Berlin offered a night life in a much larger scale. He early took as models two statuesque cabaret dancers, the sisters Gerda and Erna Schilling.
In 1912 Erna posed for him in the nude, a theme which was another early interest for Kirchner. In 1913 she was the model for the risqué Tänzerin mit gehobenem Bein, a 66 cm high painted oakwood figure sold for $ 8M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 2 A. She will be the lifelong partner of the artist.
On June 30, 2021, Christie's sold for £ 7.1M an oil on canvas 100 x 75 cm painted in 1912, lot 17A. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The title, Pantomime Reimann, indicates that it is part of a project for a programme for a risqué cabaret show operated by the then 22 years old Hans Reimann, for which watercolor sketches are also known. The subtitle, Die Rache des Tänzerin (the revenge of the dancer) is promising much excitement.
It stages a well dressed performer who is certainly one of the Schilling sisters. Towering like the Great Whore of the Apocalypse, she leans without compassion over a male admirer in tuxedo who is lying prone on the floor. An acrobat looks at the scene while a peeping viewer is only seen by his reflection in a mirror. The vivid colors are appealing for entering the show.
On terms of cabaret inspired art, some comparison may be made with Le Chahut painted by Seurat in 1889-1890.
1913 Tänzerin mit gehobenem Bein (sculpture)
2015 SOLD for $ 8M by Christie's
In 1912 the cabaret performer Erna Schilling also posed for Kirchner as a nude bather on the strand.
In 1913 she was the model for the Tänzerin mit gehobenem Bein, a 66 cm high figure painted on a single carved oakwood log. In a cabaret dancing attitude, she raises a leg and bends the other while catching her skirt with both hands. It was sold for $ 8M from a lower estimate of $ 3.5M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 2 A. Traces of the original color are remaining.
This daring sculpture may have been executed in the summer of 1913 in the Baltic island of Fehmarn. Erna am Meer, oil on canvas 79 x 69 cm staging the fully dressed muse in the forefront, was painted in that holiday resort. It was sold for £ 4.8M by Christie's on February 2, 2016, lot 15.
Erna will be the lifelong partner of the artist. Many sculptures by Kirchner had been destructed as degenerate art by the Nazis and some of the rest were burned after Erna's estate sale.
In 1913 she was the model for the Tänzerin mit gehobenem Bein, a 66 cm high figure painted on a single carved oakwood log. In a cabaret dancing attitude, she raises a leg and bends the other while catching her skirt with both hands. It was sold for $ 8M from a lower estimate of $ 3.5M by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 2 A. Traces of the original color are remaining.
This daring sculpture may have been executed in the summer of 1913 in the Baltic island of Fehmarn. Erna am Meer, oil on canvas 79 x 69 cm staging the fully dressed muse in the forefront, was painted in that holiday resort. It was sold for £ 4.8M by Christie's on February 2, 2016, lot 15.
Erna will be the lifelong partner of the artist. Many sculptures by Kirchner had been destructed as degenerate art by the Nazis and some of the rest were burned after Erna's estate sale.
1913 Vier Akte unter Bäumen
2017 SOLD for £ 5.5M by Sotheby's
The artistic movement Die Brücke was founded in 1905 by four German students. Life must influence art but also art has to change the way of life. Outdoor naturism is a symbol of paradise, an invitation to reject the bourgeois inhibitions and also a preparation for the torrid sexuality of the interior scenes.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is the most active of the group. Residing in Berlin since 1911 he cannot adapt to the conditions of life in the big city. With his friends and their female companions, they spend much of summer in tents or huts and practice an integral nudity in daily occupations, recreational bathing, play and art, in accordance with the Freikörperkultur theories.
Vier Akte unter Bäumen, oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm painted in 1913, was sold for £ 5.5M from a lower estimate of £ 3.5M by Sotheby's on March 1, 2017, lot 14.
The scene stages four nudes in the woods, three of them in full frontal position not hiding the sex. The man is a self-portrait. The three women around him display a varied maturity that unquestionably evokes the Judgment of Paris. In the freedom of the life that he desires, Ernst Ludwig will invite whoever woman he prefers. The youngest is nicely approaching from behind.
This painting is executed with thick lines and a wild color of the naked skins attesting to the influence of Matisse whose artistic advances were much appreciated by these young people. The simplified style of bodies and heads also evokes the stylization of tribal art six years after the breakthrough of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is the most active of the group. Residing in Berlin since 1911 he cannot adapt to the conditions of life in the big city. With his friends and their female companions, they spend much of summer in tents or huts and practice an integral nudity in daily occupations, recreational bathing, play and art, in accordance with the Freikörperkultur theories.
Vier Akte unter Bäumen, oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm painted in 1913, was sold for £ 5.5M from a lower estimate of £ 3.5M by Sotheby's on March 1, 2017, lot 14.
The scene stages four nudes in the woods, three of them in full frontal position not hiding the sex. The man is a self-portrait. The three women around him display a varied maturity that unquestionably evokes the Judgment of Paris. In the freedom of the life that he desires, Ernst Ludwig will invite whoever woman he prefers. The youngest is nicely approaching from behind.
This painting is executed with thick lines and a wild color of the naked skins attesting to the influence of Matisse whose artistic advances were much appreciated by these young people. The simplified style of bodies and heads also evokes the stylization of tribal art six years after the breakthrough of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon.
#Kirchner’s primary concern was the representation of the human form in its most primitive or uninhibited state https://t.co/KiribF0jrW pic.twitter.com/DrRF8VXcje
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) February 28, 2017
Berliner Strassenszene
1
1913 Strassenszene
2009 SOLD for £ 5.4M by Sotheby's
In Berlin in 1913, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted street scenes. Passers-by are there, but what are they looking for ? Like Munch, but with vibrant colors, he does not show anything else than their anguish. Kirchner came from Dresden. His vision of Berlin is a terrible expression of the anonymity of people in large cities. At the next generation, Giacometti had the same kind of inspiration for his bronzes.
The best known painting by Kirchner on this topic, 120 x 91 cm, is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Another painting, 121 x 95 cm, was sold for $ 38M in 2006.
A smaller oil on canvas, 70 x 51 cm, is arguably the last of this 1913 series still in private hands. It was sold for £ 5.4M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2009, lot 13. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Significance of the Smaller Strassenszene in Kirchner's Berlin Street Scenes Series
The painting in question, Strassenszene (Street Scene) (recto, with Kopf Gräf (Portrait of Gräf) on the verso), is a 1913 oil on canvas work measuring 70 x 51 cm (27 1/2 x 20 in.). It was sold at Sotheby's London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on February 3, 2009, as lot 13, for £5,417,250 (approximately $7.8 million at the time, including fees), against an estimate of £5–7 million. This smaller piece is a key example from Kirchner's Berlin Street Scenes series (1913–1915), which, as noted in prior discussions, represents the apex of his Expressionist phase, capturing the alienation, dynamism, and psychological tension of pre-World War I Berlin through angular forms, vivid colors, and distorted figures.
Within the series—comprising about 11 major oil paintings from 1913–1915—this work holds particular importance as one of the few executed purely in 1913, emphasizing Kirchner's evolving mastery of urban themes post his 1911 move to Berlin and the 1913 dissolution of Die Brücke. Compositionally, it closely mirrors the monumental Street, Berlin (1913) in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (Gordon no. 364), which scholar Donald E. Gordon deemed the series' most successful due to its dynamic crowd depiction and stylistic innovations. Shared elements include rhomboid heads conveying movement, elongated mannequin-like figures with mask-like faces, a man leaning toward a shop window on the right, and sharp color contrasts evoking the city's "malevolently glittering attraction." However, in this version, the two central female figures (likely prostitutes) stare directly out, engaging the viewer more confrontationally than in the MoMA piece, where they face each other.
Its significance is amplified by its rarity: As of the 2009 sale, this was the only 1913 street scene (unrepainted) remaining in private hands, with the other nine in major museums (e.g., MoMA, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Thyssen-Bornemisza). (One additional 1913 version, repainted in 1922, is also privately held.) Kirchner retained the painting until his death in 1938, underscoring its personal value; the verso portrait of art historian Botho Gräf (1914) links it to Kirchner's Jena circle during a transitional period before his 1915 breakdown. Exhibited early (e.g., Frankfurt 1919, Zurich 1952, Paris 1992–93) and referenced in key literature like Gordon's 1968 catalogue raisonné (no. 414v recto, no. 414 verso) and Moeller's 1993 study (no. 69), it exemplifies Kirchner's "pictorial language for [Berlin's] denatured humanity."
Provenance traces from Kirchner's estate to Swiss and Canadian collectors, with a prior sale at Sotheby's in 1997 for £2.4 million (about $3.3 million, a Kirchner record then). The 2009 sale highlighted the market's strength for Kirchner's Berlin works amid economic uncertainty, fetching over its low estimate.
Was It Purchased by Lauder?
No, this painting was not purchased by Ronald S. Lauder. Lauder acquired the larger 1913–1914 Berliner Strassenszene (121 x 95 cm) at Christie's New York in 2006 for $38.1 million, now a centerpiece at the Neue Galerie. The Neue Galerie's Kirchner holdings focus on that single street scene, with no records of additional acquisitions from the series. Post-2009, the smaller Strassenszene remains in a private collection, reportedly in Switzerland. The 2009 buyer's identity was not publicly disclosed in auction reports or subsequent literature.
The best known painting by Kirchner on this topic, 120 x 91 cm, is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Another painting, 121 x 95 cm, was sold for $ 38M in 2006.
A smaller oil on canvas, 70 x 51 cm, is arguably the last of this 1913 series still in private hands. It was sold for £ 5.4M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2009, lot 13. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Significance of the Smaller Strassenszene in Kirchner's Berlin Street Scenes Series
The painting in question, Strassenszene (Street Scene) (recto, with Kopf Gräf (Portrait of Gräf) on the verso), is a 1913 oil on canvas work measuring 70 x 51 cm (27 1/2 x 20 in.). It was sold at Sotheby's London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on February 3, 2009, as lot 13, for £5,417,250 (approximately $7.8 million at the time, including fees), against an estimate of £5–7 million. This smaller piece is a key example from Kirchner's Berlin Street Scenes series (1913–1915), which, as noted in prior discussions, represents the apex of his Expressionist phase, capturing the alienation, dynamism, and psychological tension of pre-World War I Berlin through angular forms, vivid colors, and distorted figures.
Within the series—comprising about 11 major oil paintings from 1913–1915—this work holds particular importance as one of the few executed purely in 1913, emphasizing Kirchner's evolving mastery of urban themes post his 1911 move to Berlin and the 1913 dissolution of Die Brücke. Compositionally, it closely mirrors the monumental Street, Berlin (1913) in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (Gordon no. 364), which scholar Donald E. Gordon deemed the series' most successful due to its dynamic crowd depiction and stylistic innovations. Shared elements include rhomboid heads conveying movement, elongated mannequin-like figures with mask-like faces, a man leaning toward a shop window on the right, and sharp color contrasts evoking the city's "malevolently glittering attraction." However, in this version, the two central female figures (likely prostitutes) stare directly out, engaging the viewer more confrontationally than in the MoMA piece, where they face each other.
Its significance is amplified by its rarity: As of the 2009 sale, this was the only 1913 street scene (unrepainted) remaining in private hands, with the other nine in major museums (e.g., MoMA, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Thyssen-Bornemisza). (One additional 1913 version, repainted in 1922, is also privately held.) Kirchner retained the painting until his death in 1938, underscoring its personal value; the verso portrait of art historian Botho Gräf (1914) links it to Kirchner's Jena circle during a transitional period before his 1915 breakdown. Exhibited early (e.g., Frankfurt 1919, Zurich 1952, Paris 1992–93) and referenced in key literature like Gordon's 1968 catalogue raisonné (no. 414v recto, no. 414 verso) and Moeller's 1993 study (no. 69), it exemplifies Kirchner's "pictorial language for [Berlin's] denatured humanity."
Provenance traces from Kirchner's estate to Swiss and Canadian collectors, with a prior sale at Sotheby's in 1997 for £2.4 million (about $3.3 million, a Kirchner record then). The 2009 sale highlighted the market's strength for Kirchner's Berlin works amid economic uncertainty, fetching over its low estimate.
Was It Purchased by Lauder?
No, this painting was not purchased by Ronald S. Lauder. Lauder acquired the larger 1913–1914 Berliner Strassenszene (121 x 95 cm) at Christie's New York in 2006 for $38.1 million, now a centerpiece at the Neue Galerie. The Neue Galerie's Kirchner holdings focus on that single street scene, with no records of additional acquisitions from the series. Post-2009, the smaller Strassenszene remains in a private collection, reportedly in Switzerland. The 2009 buyer's identity was not publicly disclosed in auction reports or subsequent literature.
2
1913-1914
2006 SOLD for $ 38M by Christie's
The Die Brücke movement was founded in Dresden in 1905 by four students who wanted to define a modern life based on freedom. From 1911 the lights, the pleasures and the opportunities of Berlin attract them like butterflies. The failure is total. The group explodes in January 1913.
Kirchner has to face the facts. Life in Berlin is not communal. Each individual is isolated in the crowd. At that time prostitutes were the queens of the Berlin sidewalk. They are recognizable by customers from odd signs which are not sufficient to make them intercepted by the police of morals : the high feather on the hat, the tight dresses in too bright colors.
The Strassenszene series, begun at the end of 1913 and interrupted by the war, marks Kirchner's attempt to interpret this city life which he did not want. An oil on canvas 122 x 91 cm painted in 1913 or 1914 was sold for $ 38M by Christie's on November 8, 2006 from a lower estimate of $ 18M, lot 37. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Two cocottes walk together in the middle of a dense crowd. The characters around them go in all directions, like in a whirlwind, without any interaction between them. Two men are in the foreground, not without arrogance. They are pimps or customers. In the background, the panel of the tram 15 enables to locate the scene in the heart of the big city.
This anxiety-provoking atmosphere is also perfectly transposed by Kirchner in his wood engravings. A Strassenszene with formidably unfriendly characters passed at Sotheby's on October 23, 2017. Fünf Kokotten, a grotesque interpretation of this weird fashion, was sold for CHF 920K before fees by Kornfeld on June 15, 2012.
The Berlin Street Scenes Series in Kirchner's Career
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) was a leading figure in German Expressionism and a founding member of the artists' group Die Brücke (The Bridge), established in Dresden in 1905. The group sought to break from academic traditions, emphasizing raw emotion, bold colors, distorted forms, and urban modernity. Kirchner's move from Dresden to Berlin in 1911 marked a pivotal shift in his work, as the bustling, alienating metropolis became his primary subject. This Berlin period (1911–1917) is widely regarded as the peak of his career, where his style evolved to capture the psychological intensity and social dynamics of pre-World War I urban life.
The "Berlin Street Scenes" series, created primarily between 1913 and 1915, represents the culmination of this phase and is considered Kirchner's most important body of work, as well as a milestone in Expressionism. Comprising about a dozen major paintings (plus related prints and drawings), the series depicts the vibrant yet isolating streets of Berlin, often focusing on "Kokotten" (prostitutes) and their well-dressed male clients amid crowds of anonymous figures. Kirchner portrayed the city as a place of glamour mixed with danger, intimacy alongside alienation, using angular forms, jagged lines, and vivid contrasts to convey tension and unease. These works symbolized the modern urban experience—crowded yet lonely, seductive yet threatening—reflecting broader societal anxieties in Wilhelmine Germany on the brink of war. Artistically, the series marked Kirchner's mastery of Expressionist techniques: exaggerated perspectives, mask-like faces, and dynamic compositions influenced by African and Oceanic art, as well as the Fauves. It also signified the dissolution of Die Brücke in 1913, after which Kirchner worked more independently, intensifying his focus on psychological depth. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 disrupted his productivity; he suffered a mental breakdown during brief military service in 1915, leading to addiction issues and a move to Switzerland in 1917. Thus, the Street Scenes encapsulate his pre-war creative zenith, before personal and historical traumas shifted his style toward more introspective landscapes.
Significance of the Specific Painting: Berliner Strassenszene (1913–1914)
The painting in question, Berliner Strassenszene (Berlin Street Scene), is a quintessential example from the series, measuring about 121 x 95 cm and executed in oil on canvas. It portrays two prostitutes strolling amid a crowd on a Berlin street, with elongated figures, sharp angles, and a palette of pinks, blues, and blacks evoking the city's nocturnal energy and underlying menace. For Kirchner, such scenes were not mere observations but metaphors for modern existence, where human connections are fleeting and commodified.
This particular work stands out as one of the greatest German paintings of the 20th century and a landmark of Expressionism, embodying the series' themes at their most refined. It was owned by Jewish collector Alfred Hess until the Nazis confiscated it in the 1930s as "degenerate art." Post-war, it ended up in Berlin's Brücke-Museum. In 2006, the city of Berlin restituted it to Hess's heirs amid growing Holocaust-era art restitution efforts. The heirs then consigned it to Christie's New York, where it sold on November 8, 2006, for $38.1 million (including fees; hammer price around $34 million), setting a then-record for Kirchner and highlighting the market value of his Berlin works. The buyer was Ronald S. Lauder for the Neue Galerie in New York, where it remains a centerpiece, underscoring its cultural and historical importance beyond Kirchner's oeuvre—it also represents issues of art looting, restitution, and the enduring legacy of Expressionism.
Kirchner has to face the facts. Life in Berlin is not communal. Each individual is isolated in the crowd. At that time prostitutes were the queens of the Berlin sidewalk. They are recognizable by customers from odd signs which are not sufficient to make them intercepted by the police of morals : the high feather on the hat, the tight dresses in too bright colors.
The Strassenszene series, begun at the end of 1913 and interrupted by the war, marks Kirchner's attempt to interpret this city life which he did not want. An oil on canvas 122 x 91 cm painted in 1913 or 1914 was sold for $ 38M by Christie's on November 8, 2006 from a lower estimate of $ 18M, lot 37. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Two cocottes walk together in the middle of a dense crowd. The characters around them go in all directions, like in a whirlwind, without any interaction between them. Two men are in the foreground, not without arrogance. They are pimps or customers. In the background, the panel of the tram 15 enables to locate the scene in the heart of the big city.
This anxiety-provoking atmosphere is also perfectly transposed by Kirchner in his wood engravings. A Strassenszene with formidably unfriendly characters passed at Sotheby's on October 23, 2017. Fünf Kokotten, a grotesque interpretation of this weird fashion, was sold for CHF 920K before fees by Kornfeld on June 15, 2012.
The Berlin Street Scenes Series in Kirchner's Career
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) was a leading figure in German Expressionism and a founding member of the artists' group Die Brücke (The Bridge), established in Dresden in 1905. The group sought to break from academic traditions, emphasizing raw emotion, bold colors, distorted forms, and urban modernity. Kirchner's move from Dresden to Berlin in 1911 marked a pivotal shift in his work, as the bustling, alienating metropolis became his primary subject. This Berlin period (1911–1917) is widely regarded as the peak of his career, where his style evolved to capture the psychological intensity and social dynamics of pre-World War I urban life.
The "Berlin Street Scenes" series, created primarily between 1913 and 1915, represents the culmination of this phase and is considered Kirchner's most important body of work, as well as a milestone in Expressionism. Comprising about a dozen major paintings (plus related prints and drawings), the series depicts the vibrant yet isolating streets of Berlin, often focusing on "Kokotten" (prostitutes) and their well-dressed male clients amid crowds of anonymous figures. Kirchner portrayed the city as a place of glamour mixed with danger, intimacy alongside alienation, using angular forms, jagged lines, and vivid contrasts to convey tension and unease. These works symbolized the modern urban experience—crowded yet lonely, seductive yet threatening—reflecting broader societal anxieties in Wilhelmine Germany on the brink of war. Artistically, the series marked Kirchner's mastery of Expressionist techniques: exaggerated perspectives, mask-like faces, and dynamic compositions influenced by African and Oceanic art, as well as the Fauves. It also signified the dissolution of Die Brücke in 1913, after which Kirchner worked more independently, intensifying his focus on psychological depth. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 disrupted his productivity; he suffered a mental breakdown during brief military service in 1915, leading to addiction issues and a move to Switzerland in 1917. Thus, the Street Scenes encapsulate his pre-war creative zenith, before personal and historical traumas shifted his style toward more introspective landscapes.
Significance of the Specific Painting: Berliner Strassenszene (1913–1914)
The painting in question, Berliner Strassenszene (Berlin Street Scene), is a quintessential example from the series, measuring about 121 x 95 cm and executed in oil on canvas. It portrays two prostitutes strolling amid a crowd on a Berlin street, with elongated figures, sharp angles, and a palette of pinks, blues, and blacks evoking the city's nocturnal energy and underlying menace. For Kirchner, such scenes were not mere observations but metaphors for modern existence, where human connections are fleeting and commodified.
This particular work stands out as one of the greatest German paintings of the 20th century and a landmark of Expressionism, embodying the series' themes at their most refined. It was owned by Jewish collector Alfred Hess until the Nazis confiscated it in the 1930s as "degenerate art." Post-war, it ended up in Berlin's Brücke-Museum. In 2006, the city of Berlin restituted it to Hess's heirs amid growing Holocaust-era art restitution efforts. The heirs then consigned it to Christie's New York, where it sold on November 8, 2006, for $38.1 million (including fees; hammer price around $34 million), setting a then-record for Kirchner and highlighting the market value of his Berlin works. The buyer was Ronald S. Lauder for the Neue Galerie in New York, where it remains a centerpiece, underscoring its cultural and historical importance beyond Kirchner's oeuvre—it also represents issues of art looting, restitution, and the enduring legacy of Expressionism.
1915 Das Soldatenbad
2018 SOLD for $ 22M by Sotheby's
The onset of the World War fully disturbed Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. He was allocated in July 1915 as an artillery driver. After a few weeks, he was exempted for mental breakdown. He came back to work in his studio in Berlin but entered a sanatorium in December after being diagnosed with alcoholism and with addiction to barbital.
Painted in the follow of his discharge, Das Soldatenbad expresses his deep disgust of the de-humanizing of everyday life. A tight group of men standing in full nudity are cleaning their body in a shower room. The only clothed person is the officer in charge of the supervision. This man entrusted with the military authority is quietly exercising the oppression of the regime upon the whole group.
No similar work exists either by Kirchner or anybody else in art history, conforming that the artist's intention was not to document but to scream his reprobation.
Restituted to the heirs of a spoliated Jewish art dealer, this oil on canvas 140 x 150 cm was sold for $ 22M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Sotheby's on November 12, 2018, lot 22. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Kirchner never fully recovered from that trauma. Established at Davos, he went upset by his top position as a degenerate artist by the Nazis. He committed suicide after the Anschluss by fear that the Nazis would also invade Switzerland. His ambition at the time of Die Brücke to create a modern German art had been totally deceived.
World War I Trauma and Nervous Breakdown (1915)
Kirchner volunteered for military service in 1914 to avoid infantry conscription but suffered a severe mental and physical collapse after brief training. Discharged in 1915 as unfit, he experienced paralysis, blackouts, depression, and addictions to alcohol, morphine, and veronal. His iconic Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1915) vividly depicts this trauma: a gaunt figure in uniform with a fictional amputated hand (stump bloody), sightless eyes, and sickly pallor, symbolizing emasculation, helplessness, and psychic wounding.
Analyses describe this as a direct manifestation of "war neurosis," with colors (jaundiced green, gory red) emphasizing unhealed psychological scars.
Recovery in Sanatoria and Move to Davos (1916–1918 onward)
Kirchner spent years in sanatoria (e.g., in Berlin, Königstein, Kreuzlingen under psychoanalyst Ludwig Binswanger, and Davos). Art became therapeutic: he continued painting and printmaking, producing portraits of doctors, patients, and friends. Moving permanently to Davos, Switzerland, in 1918, the alpine environment aided partial recovery. His later works shift to vibrant, abstracting landscapes and serene figures, suggesting a search for harmony and escape from modernity's pressures.Portraits of companions (e.g., partner Erna Schilling or friends) show intimacy amid isolation.
Despite improvement, relapses occurred, with ongoing substance issues and paranoia.
Final Years and Suicide (1930s–1938)
The Nazi rise devastated Kirchner: over 600 works were confiscated, many destroyed or shown in the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition. This rejection exacerbated depression and fears of invasion (post-Anschluss). He died by gunshot in 1938; traditionally viewed as suicide due to despair, though recent forensic doubts suggest possible murder (recoil making a second shot improbable).
Psychoanalytic views frame his career as a "symbiotic" bond between artist and art, where creation regulated narcissism but risked "catastrophic" collapse under external threat.
Kirchner's oeuvre illustrates how mental illness—trauma-induced depression, addiction, anxiety—fueled Expressionism's raw emotionality, while art provided intermittent coping and catharsis. Comparisons to Edvard Munch highlight shared themes of anxiety in modernist printmaking and painting. His legacy endures as a poignant exploration of the psyche in tur
Painted in the follow of his discharge, Das Soldatenbad expresses his deep disgust of the de-humanizing of everyday life. A tight group of men standing in full nudity are cleaning their body in a shower room. The only clothed person is the officer in charge of the supervision. This man entrusted with the military authority is quietly exercising the oppression of the regime upon the whole group.
No similar work exists either by Kirchner or anybody else in art history, conforming that the artist's intention was not to document but to scream his reprobation.
Restituted to the heirs of a spoliated Jewish art dealer, this oil on canvas 140 x 150 cm was sold for $ 22M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Sotheby's on November 12, 2018, lot 22. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Kirchner never fully recovered from that trauma. Established at Davos, he went upset by his top position as a degenerate artist by the Nazis. He committed suicide after the Anschluss by fear that the Nazis would also invade Switzerland. His ambition at the time of Die Brücke to create a modern German art had been totally deceived.
World War I Trauma and Nervous Breakdown (1915)
Kirchner volunteered for military service in 1914 to avoid infantry conscription but suffered a severe mental and physical collapse after brief training. Discharged in 1915 as unfit, he experienced paralysis, blackouts, depression, and addictions to alcohol, morphine, and veronal. His iconic Self-Portrait as a Soldier (1915) vividly depicts this trauma: a gaunt figure in uniform with a fictional amputated hand (stump bloody), sightless eyes, and sickly pallor, symbolizing emasculation, helplessness, and psychic wounding.
Analyses describe this as a direct manifestation of "war neurosis," with colors (jaundiced green, gory red) emphasizing unhealed psychological scars.
Recovery in Sanatoria and Move to Davos (1916–1918 onward)
Kirchner spent years in sanatoria (e.g., in Berlin, Königstein, Kreuzlingen under psychoanalyst Ludwig Binswanger, and Davos). Art became therapeutic: he continued painting and printmaking, producing portraits of doctors, patients, and friends. Moving permanently to Davos, Switzerland, in 1918, the alpine environment aided partial recovery. His later works shift to vibrant, abstracting landscapes and serene figures, suggesting a search for harmony and escape from modernity's pressures.Portraits of companions (e.g., partner Erna Schilling or friends) show intimacy amid isolation.
Despite improvement, relapses occurred, with ongoing substance issues and paranoia.
Final Years and Suicide (1930s–1938)
The Nazi rise devastated Kirchner: over 600 works were confiscated, many destroyed or shown in the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition. This rejection exacerbated depression and fears of invasion (post-Anschluss). He died by gunshot in 1938; traditionally viewed as suicide due to despair, though recent forensic doubts suggest possible murder (recoil making a second shot improbable).
Psychoanalytic views frame his career as a "symbiotic" bond between artist and art, where creation regulated narcissism but risked "catastrophic" collapse under external threat.
Kirchner's oeuvre illustrates how mental illness—trauma-induced depression, addiction, anxiety—fueled Expressionism's raw emotionality, while art provided intermittent coping and catharsis. Comparisons to Edvard Munch highlight shared themes of anxiety in modernist printmaking and painting. His legacy endures as a poignant exploration of the psyche in tur
