Fritz Bleyl (1880–1966)
Exhibition by Artists’ Group Brücke (Poster for the exhibition at Karl Max Seifert in Dresden-Löbtau), 1906
Lithograph in yellow and orange
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
This poster was designed as an advertisement for the first Brücke exhibition in Dresden and fell victim to official censorship. The exhibition took place in the sales room of the Karl Max Seifert lamp factory in Dresden-Löbtau. Bleyl later wrote: »The first poster for this exhibition turned out to be a special case. […] It was intended to be long and narrow, similar to a Japanese hanging scroll or kakemono, in a lemon yellow shade on white, depicting a naked female figure stepping out of a dark background. […] That poster had to be presented to the police administration and was prudishly rejected and not permitted to be hung.«
Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
Pechstein Sleeping, 1910
Oil on canvas
Buchheim Museum der Phantasie, Bernried am Starnberger See
About 70 years ago, in 1955, the founder of the Buchheim Museum der Phantasie, Lothar-Günther Buchheim, bought Erich Heckel’s oil painting Frau und Kinder of 1920 at an auction in Stuttgart. Concealed on the verso and protected by a layer of white chalk was a depiction of a man in a deckchair. Buchheim knew the motif from a catalogue published by the Arnold Gallery in Dresden in 1910. Thanks to being camouflaged on the verso of a painting that was not branded as »degenerate«, the work Pechstein Sleeping, thought to be lost, survived the era of National Socialism. Here Erich Heckel painted his friend Max Pechstein in the small seaside town of Dangast on the North Sea in summer 1910. The latter had visited him and his painter-friend Karl Schmidt-Rottluff there for a couple of weeks. The work is considered to have marked the dawning of Expressionism, and in 1974 a postage stamp based on it was issued by the Bundespost.
Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
River Landscape with Bridge and Train, 1905
Oil on cardboard
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
While he was attending school in Chemnitz, Erich Heckel became friends with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. In 1905 the two of them met again at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, where they were both studying architecture. Through conversations with Kirchner and Bleyl and joint practice in drawing, Heckel gradually realised that he had an artistic talent. In view of its strong short brushstrokes the painting on exhibition here, a River Landscape with Bridge and Train in Dresden, clearly indicates that in 1905 the painting method used by Erich Heckel and the Brücke artists was still strongly oriented around Late Impressionism. Immediately after the foundation of the artists’ group Brücke, the members did not yet have a fixed artistic objective. The typical expressionistic style of the Brücke artists only developed later through their working together.
Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
Seaside Scene (Bathing Women), 1912
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
In 1912 Erich Heckel and his wife Sidi spent the summer on the island of Hiddensee and then visited Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, his wife Erna Schilling and her sister Gerda on Fehmarn.
The figures here are outlined in black. Finer, internal details have been largely done without and with them any individualisation of the persons depicted. The scene of men and women bathing together mirrors ideas of an ideal way of life that enabled the sexes to live together freely with nature. Both motif and attitude are in very much keeping with the Life Reform movement which was widespread at the time.
Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
Two Girls, 1912
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
In the period before the First World War, Heckel did numerous enigmatic paintings with indefinite spatial situations and ambiguous possibilities of interpretation. »It depicts a seated woman and a girl kneeling on a floor with a carpet ornament, both in front of a wall with batik fabric«, is how the artist described his painting in 1951. »So it represents a real scene, and what is more, through the touching hands, the expression, the angles and circles behind their heads and the colours, it renders the relationship between the older and the younger person visible.«
Annual Portfolios of the Brücke group
From 1906 to 1911 the artists’ group Brücke published annual gifts of portfolios for their passive members containing original prints. The passive members promoted the artists and also supported them in non-material ways. The annual portfolios were not just a quid pro quo for the membership dues, but also served to disseminate their art and make it better known to an audience. While the first three portfolios contained works by different artists, in those issued as of 1909 the focus was on one artist. A total of seven portfolios were created, whereby the last, dedicated to Pechstein, was withdrawn as he had left the group in the spring of 1912. Each portfolio contains three to four prints, some of them complemented by covers with woodblock prints. The woodblock prints and lithographs are handmade prints that were often designed specifically for the edition.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Girl with Peony Roses, 1909
Oil on board, on plywood
Kunst- und Museumsverein im Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Jawlensky garnered important inspiration for his artistic development during his sojourns in Paris from 1903 to 1907, where he admired the art of the Fauves and came into contact with Henri Matisse. In this work, the young woman, presumably Resi, the often portrayed Munich model, is holding a bunch of peony roses and wearing striking head gear. The latter, along with the red jacket and the flowers, determines the flat composition against the garish turquoise backdrop. The woman’s facial features are rendered in some detail. At that time, the artist had already begun to merely place shadows on the faces he depicted, only to later let them dissolve fully into abstract colour fields.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Mountain Peak, 1912
Oil on cardboard
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Jawlensky, who was bound to Wassiliy Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter by a close friendship, had visited his friends in Murnau as early as 1908 and 1910 and created several landscape paintings there. In summer 1912 Jawlensky travelled again to the Allgäu, staying in Oberstdorf till the end of the year. There he painted more strongly coloured landscapes, like the one dated 1912 called Mountain Peak painted in oil on board. Against a dark grey sky we see a triangular mountain peak, the top of which touches the upper edge of the painting. The emphasised position of the multicoloured peak is heightened by the dark green and blackish-grey background. Even though Jawlensky was not a member of the editorial community of the Blauer Reiter, he took part in their art exhibitions.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
The Yellow House, 1908/09
Oil on painting board
Privatsammlung, Private Collection, Loan at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
Jawlensky’s engagement with French modernism, on the one hand, and his summer sojourns in the Bavarian Alpine foothills, on the other were, exerted a particular influence on his work. The Yellow House was probably painted shortly after Jawlensky’s first stay in Murnau in 1908. We see the hotel Villa Steiger where many important personalities from the fields of art and culture used to stay at the time. Jawlensky first rendered the motif as an outline drawing on board, using a brush and blue paint. He then proceeded to colour it. What is striking is that the colours are condensed into areas which in turn are arranged so as to form ever greater contrasts. This creates a painterly tension that is heightened by the rather dynamic pictorial composition.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Messalina, 1912
Oil on board
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
In 1912 Jawlensky focussed on further developing his formal compositional style. In the course of doing so, he chose the human face as one of his main motifs, alongside landscapes. However his engagement with people was not aimed at achieving a naturalistic portrayal. Instead, the artist strove to see behind the physical presence, to explore his or her inner life and express it with the tools of art. The historical figure of Messalina was the wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius and infamous for her excessive and licentious life and her unscrupulousness. In his portrait of the same name, Jawlensky is concerned with these character traits. The picture is marked strongly contrasting primary colours. The facial features are rendered in soft, sensually flowing lines.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Murnau – The Valley, 1909
Oil on thin wood
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Red, blue, yellow – the appearance of the landscapes around Murnau painted by the Russian artist Alexej von Jawlensky is determined by the primary colours. Jawlensky had already come to Munich at the end of the 19th century together with his partner, the artist Marianne von Werefkin. He got to know Wassily Kandinsky there. Once Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter had discovered Murnau as an ideal ‘place for painting’ in 1908, the four artists began an artistically very fruitful joint period there. This was an important development on the way to the foundation of the Blaue Reiter in Munich. From 1908 onwards Jawlensky completed a whole series of highly colourful paintings of the Murnau landscape. This particular work shows the view from Murnau of the expansive valley in front of the Bavarian mountains.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Red Still Life with violet Jug, 1910
Oil on painting board
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
For the work Red Still Life with violet Jug, 1910, the artist used coarse brushstrokes on artist’s board. It shows a bouquet of flowers in a jug on a small table. The flat pictorial composition and the colours used point to Jawlensky’s artistic engagement with contemporary French art. At the top right he has signed the painting »A. Jawlensky« in Cyrillic. The signature could indicate that he took part in an exhibition in Russia negotiated by Kandinsky, as was the case with other works. Interestingly, on the verso of the picture carrier there is a portrait of a man. That portrait was not by Jawlensky, however, but most probably by his artist-friend Heinrich Ehmsen.
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Spanish Girl (Poster for the 2nd Survey Exhibition at Galerie Neue Kunst, Hans Goltz, Munich), 1913
Colour litograph
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Hans Goltz was a book and art dealer and managed the Neue Kunst gallery in Munich. He promoted young, or as yet unknown, avant-garde artists and also maintained close contacts with the protagonists of the Blauer Reiter group. He had already mounted one exhibition of work by members of that group. In October 1912 the gallery moved into new prestigious exhibition rooms on Munich’s Odeonplatz. From the August to September of the following year a group exhibition was held there in which Jawlensky participated showing several works. Jawlensky’s oil painting Spanish Girl served as the model for the corresponding exhibition poster. He had painted the work the previous year (today it is in the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg).
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941)
Standing nude with hand on the Hip, 1912
Pencil
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
The pencil drawing on laid paper is of a woman standing naked in a three-quarter profile. Her right arm is on her hip, while her left arm is behind her back and only just about recognisable. Her head covering conceals her hair. She seems to be directing her gaze straight out from the right of the picture. In 1912 Jawlensky drew numerous female nudes. However this drawing of a woman standing is special in that the artist mainly drew sitting or recumbent figures. Characteristic of this period in his creative life is that the legs and feet are not fully drawn, a feature that can also be seen in other works by him.
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Improvisation Deluge, 1913
Oil on canvas
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Gabriele Münter Stiftung 1957
Improvisation Sintflut is one of the works that Wassily Kandinsky did in preparation for the larger Komposition VI on the theme of the deluge. The point of departure was a reverse glass painting, which is lost today, showing numerous narrative motifs from the Biblical Judgement of God, such as animals, naked figures, an arc, palm trees, rays of lightning and rain. It was some time, however, before Kandinsky was able to free himself of the external mimetic image of the deluge as a thing in favour of an independent formal idea. By his own account, he saw himself as a snake »that did not quite succeed in sloughing off his old skin«. The impression that emerges here is of movement and water, and even of a dramatic event like a flood and destruction, without there being any obvious figurative indication of this.
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Improvisation 33 (Orient I), 1913
Oil on canvas
Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
In his painting Kandinsky strove for a kind of »harmonics«, like in music, with which the colours and forms were intended to comply in a refined and abstract way. In doing this he used the term impressions to describe paintings that reproduced a direct impression of external nature. Improvisations, by contrast, processed impressions received from »internal nature«. Above and beyond being an abstract composition consisting of colour planes and lines, Improvisation 33 has recognisable figurative elements which are underscored further by the secondary title Orient I. The painting can be regarded as a variation on the theme of the Garden of Eden, to which, for example, the horizontal forms in the foreground to the left point; these can be understood as a recumbent woman or couple, and the blue oval associated with a bubbling fountain. But how is the black area to be understand? Are dark clouds approaching?
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Murnau – Untermarkt, 1908
Oil on board
Privat Collection, Germany
Murnau, a small town on the Staffelsee lake in Upper Bavaria, became a centre of expressionist painting in the early 20th century. After years of travelling, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter discovered it in summer 1908. In August of the same year friends of theirs, the artist-couple Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin, also arrived there. They stayed at the Gasthof Griesbräu on Obermarkt and worked together intensively. In 1909 Gabriele Münter bought a house in Murnau, which then became the meeting point for the two expressionist artist-couples.
Kandinsky called the Murnau landscapes he painted between 1908 and 1910 »impressions«, as they originated in his own observations of nature. Increasingly, Kandinsky freed paint from the object and overcame perspectival representation.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Seated Nude with Hat, 1911
Oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
The painting Seated Nude with Hat was done shortly before Kirchner moved to Berlin. It shows a naked woman sitting on a blue carpet-like area with her knees bent. She is holding a fan in her left hand while her right hand conceals her pubic area. Her head is bent slightly to the side and she is looking out of the lower left edge of the picture. The composition is marked by simplified forms, curved body contours and strong colours. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner got to know the art of the French painter Paul Gauguin in autumn 1910 in Dresden. As this depiction of a nude indicates, this greatly influenced his artistic creativity.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Erich Heckel and Dodo in the Studio, 19010/11
Oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
The protagonists of the artists’ group Brücke maintained close friendly contacts and strove together to integrate art and life. In this sense, the painting Erich Heckel and Dodo in the Studio illustrates the seemingly familiar living and working atmosphere that the artists cultivated. Heckel is sitting with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s partner Doris, called Dodo, at a table set with coffee cups in the seating area of the studio. He is leaning forwards slightly so that he appears to be telling her something. In the background we can make out a painting of Kirchner’s and on the table is a small wooden sculpture. The encapsulating of individual formal and colour fields by means of black outlines is characteristic of Kirchner’s style around 1911.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Portrait of Gerda, around 1914
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Kirchner got to know the Schilling sisters, Erna and Gerda, in a nightclub in Berlin in 1911. Erna later became his partner.
The artist portrays Gerda as a fashionably dressed and elaborately made-up woman. She is wearing a striking large hat adorned with blossoms. The colours, brilliant and applied in sharp contrasts one beside the other, seem slightly garish.
Kirchner wrote of the two sisters: »The beautiful bodies of these two young women, architecturally composed and strictly formed, replaced the soft Saxon bodies. […] They are training my sense of beauty towards shaping the physically beautiful woman of our time.«
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Manifesto of the Artists Group Brücke, 1906
Woodcut on folded paper
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
From 1906 onwards, Kirchner was the author of the group’s programmatic texts expressing the atmosphere of a new departure among the young artists, their will to work together and at the same time their desire for freedom. Kirchner carved the text in wood and designed the respective, much smaller, title vignette. The transposition into script – large angular letters in a slim justified text block – is in keeping with the forceful and impulsive language of the text and clearly expresses the artistic aspiration and striving for content and form to make a unified impact.
During the exhibitions a machine printed version of the text was available as a flyer. By contrast, the exclusive woodblock print was sent to the passive members of the Brücke group. The use of the woodblock print can be understood as a sign of respect for the art of the Middle Ages, more precisely, of Albrecht Dürer; the medieval guilds also served as a model for the formation of the artists’ group.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Women on the Street, around 1914
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted Women on the Street in Berlin around 1914. The artist had moved from Dresden to the capital in 1911 hoping for greater success. Over the course of two years he focused repeatedly on street scenes in his painting. The covert way cocottes and their clients made contact had all the alluring charm of the forbidden, as prostitution was officially prohibited at the time. The artist was fascinated by the night-time activities on the streets and in the entertainment venues. Under the influence of Italian Futurism, Kirchner transferred his own nervous energy into dynamic forms of expression. This painting, the last of eight paintings of street scenes, represents a highpoint in his expressionist work.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Four Bathers, 1909/10
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
The painter colleagues Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel spent the summers of 1909 and 1910 at the Moritzburg Lakes north of Dresden. Max Pechstein joined them in 1910. The artists associated freedom and an unspoiled natural state with that lake scenery. In this natural idyll they painted mainly nude pictures that express a genuine harmony between man and nature and also recall the Life Reform movement. The figure to the right of the painting is only rendered schematically. Here the canvas is still visible, as it is at other points in the painting. This manner of painting testifies to a swift working method and to spontaneity, something that is also evident in the sketch-like outlines. Presumably the painting was done on site after direct observation.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
Windmills on Fehmarn, 1913
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Kirchner travelled to Fehmarn for the first time in 1908 along with Emy Frisch, who would later marry Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and her brother Hans. Between 1912 and 1914 he stayed on the island four times and was very taken by its relatively unspoiled nature. He did more than 120 works there. In 1912 he wrote to his friend Gustav Schiefler: »I have painted works of complete maturing, as far as I myself can judge that. Ochre, blue and green are the colours of Fehmarn, the most wonderful coastal formation, sometimes with an abundance typical of the South Seas, fabulous flowers with fleshy stems, as well as a rather degenerate population due to incest.«
Paul Klee (1879–1940)
View from the Studio Window, 1909
Chalk, watercolour
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Paul Klee studied at the Academy in Munich in Franz von Stuck’s class from 1900 to 1901. In 1906 he and his wife finally moved from Berne to Munich. The early oeuvre Klee produced there consists exclusively of works in graphic art techniques.
Klee got to know Wassily Kandinsky in Schwabing in 1911 and one year later took part in the second exhibition of the Blauer Reiter.
This drawing shows the view from his studio on Feilitzschstrasse in Munich across snow covered gardens towards a row of houses with irregular roofs of different heights. Klee did his first paintings in connection with a trip to Tunis together with August Macke and Louis Moilliet in April 1914.
Paul Klee (1879–1940)
Interior Architecture, 1914
Watercolour, gouache, chalk ground
Kunst- und Museumsverein im Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Paul Klee received important impulses for the formation of his own style from his intense engagement with French Cubism and Robert Delaunay. In this context, the trip to Tunisia with his painter-friends August Macke and Louis Moilliet in April 1914 was of major significance. It was there that he re-discovered his relationship to colour.
The colour palette of blue, purple and green shades evokes a night-time atmosphere. Klee arranges architectural elements, such as windows, domes, fences, walls and round arches, into a structure of horizontals and verticals. Brilliant colour planes are dispersed rhythmically across the sheet like illuminated windows and door openings. As a result, impressions of nature and geometrical forms combine in this free composition to form an indivisible pictorial cosmos.
August Macke (1887–1914)
Clown (caricatured Self-Portrait), 1913
Oil on cardboard
Private Collection, Loan at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
The facial expression is serious and slightly sceptical, as rigid as a mask, contradicting the outward attributes of the jester’s cap, ruff and patchwork costume. Macke would thus seem to have united the two most famous predecessors of the clown: the harlequin and the Pierrot. They originated in the Commedia dell’ Arte, which had been rediscovered at the end of the 19th century by avant-garde artists like Pablo Picasso. While the harlequin plays the agile audience favourite, exposing lies and often controlling the whole plot, the Pierrot is considered to be naïve and melancholic. Both types were also familiar to Macke from the Ballet Russes, which he saw perform in 1907 in Paris and during a guest performance in Cologne in 1912. On both occasions he did several sketches and paintings of them.
August Macke (1887–1914)
A Row of Shops under Arcades, 1914
Watercolour
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Loan from the Claus Hüppe collection
The watercolour A Row of Shops under Arcades was painted in 1914 on Thun Lake, where the roofed arcades to protect people from the elements formed part of the overall appearance of the city. The lively urban hustle and bustle that August Macke captures here benefits from those arcades. He used the paint as if he were drawing, so that it underscores the fleeting impression of an urban milieu on a sunny day. Due to the particular architecture, the lemon-yellow light only partially falls in between the blackish-purple columns, illuminating here and there the display windows and the men and women walking past them. Given that the perspective is staggered towards the back, the viewer too can take a stroll here if he or she identifies with these staffage figures.
August Macke (1887–1914)
Foxgloves in the garden, 1912
Oil on cardboard
Private Collection, on loan to the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
One source of inspiration for August Macke’s sensual-expressive painting style was the harmonious life he led with his family, and that always included their own garden area. Individual motifs from this garden realm sealed off from the outside world can be found repeatedly in his oeuvre.
Right in the middle of this painting a particularly majestic foxglove plant rises up. The scene is presented in stark close-up; a horizon line is deliberately avoided. The plant extends out over the whole painting almost monumentally. The most outstanding feature of this work is the transposition of the plant into jagged acute- and obtuse-angled forms.
August Macke (1887–1914)
Girl with Fishbowl, 1914
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Girl with Fishbowl was painted in 1914, in the last creative period in the life of the young artist August Macke, who was killed in the war. At the time, the artist was distancing himself from Expressionism, as understood by the Blaue Reiter, and engaging with the formal principles of the French artist Robert Delaunay, whom he had got to know two years previously with Franz Marc in Paris. A deeply impressed Marc wrote to Kandinsky: »I am very interested in Delaunay. He is striving for really constructive paintings without any figuration, one could even say purely tonal fugues.« Impressed by the French artist, Macke tried to achieve a rhythmic and prism-like pictorial composition by means of colour, light and movement.
August Macke (1887–1914)
Portrait Head of the Artist’s Wife, 1912
Oil on canvas
Private Collection, on loan to the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
August Macke painted this portrait of his wife Elisabeth in Bonn, where the family lived from 1911 to 1913. She was the niece of the industrialist and art patron Bernhard Koehler. The couple got to know one another at school and married in 1909. Elisabeth, who was the daughter of an industrialist, was not just the mother of their two sons, but also an important conversation partner for her husband and on the same level intellectually. She was also one of his most frequent motifs; he depicted her 200 times. After August Macke’s untimely death, she made important contributions towards his success, among other things, through donations and her memoirs.
August Macke (1887–1914)
Ramblers with City (Figures in a Mountain Landscape), 1913
Watercolour over lead pencil
Private Collection, on loan to the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
Macke often used the motif of the rambler in a town surrounding, which he had already captured in sketches and pen and ink drawings during his different trips to Paris from 1907 to 1912. He later transposed the motif into carefully composed scenes.
The watercolour Ramblers with Town dated 1913 is a particularly nice example. It presents a Sunday scene with several people lingering on a terrace with a view. The people are depicted from the rear and also function as identification figures for the viewer. The striking head gear of the passers-by has a pendant in the roofs of the houses and towers.
Franz Marc (1880–1916)
Fox, 1911
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
As of 1907 Franz Marc devoted himself almost exclusively to depicting animals, seeking to render the animal’s essence visible by means of the outward form: »From a very early stage, I felt man was ›ugly‹, while the animal seemed to me nicer, purer.«
The colours in his paintings are symbolically charged. Thus the blue stands in his view for the »male principle, harsh and intellectual«, he interpreted yellow as the female part, and red as »matter being combatted by the two others«.
The Fuchs is one of the artist’s major works. The body of the resting fox blends in with the intensely coloured landscape planes to form a harmonious unit.
Franz Marc (1880–1916)
The Yellow Cow, 1911
Oil on wood
Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale), Permanent loan from the Collection Kracht
Having moved from Munich to the rural isolation of Sindelsdorf in 1910, Marc then concentrated fully on images of animals, overcoming impressionist influences as he did so.
The year 1911 was of decisive importance in Franz Marc’s artistic development. At the time, he was exchanging ideas with Wassily Kandinsky and engaging intensely with issues to do with the theory of colours. At the end of the year, the first Blauer Reiter exhibition was opened at Galerie Tannhauser in Munich.
The frisky yellow cow is depicted jumping in a very simplified landscape. For this artist, the marging of animal and surrounding was the very basis of the pictorial idea. This lively scene is painted loosely on un-primed wood so that the painting ground is visible at some points.
Franz Marc (1880–1916)
In the Rain, 1912
Oil on canvas
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Bernhard und Elly Koehler Stiftung 1965, Donation from the estate of Bernhard Koehler sen., Berlin
Large dynamic drops of rain fall diagonally across the painting and onto a landscape with trees and shrubbery. We see two figures sheltering under a tree. The shower of rain does not seem to bother the white dog to the fore in the right corner of the painting. Here Franz Marc has painted himself and his wife Maria Marc and their beloved dog Russi – presumably in Sindelsdorf in upper Bavaria.
This picture is an exception in Marc’s work after 1910, as from that time on he only depicted landscapes and animals. Marc’s prism-like refraction of motifs is in line with the avant-garde tendencies of the pre-war period. It shows the influence of Robert Delaunay and of the Italian Futurists that he had seen in Cologne and Munich at the time.
Franz Marc (1880–1916)
Nude with Cat, 1910
Oil on canvas
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München
Franz Marc‘s main body of expressionist work is characterised by paintings of animals, which he renders as symbols of a tranquil paradise. He began to draw animals as early as 1907. In 1908 Marc spent the summer in Lenggries in Upper Bavaria with Maria Franck, the artist who would later become his wife. There too he mainly painted animals. The animal in the work entitled Akt mit Katze, a small yellow cat, is really only a supporting actor in the scene; the crouching female nude occupies centre stage. She is giving the cat a dish of milk. Marc, together with August Macke, whom he had got to know shortly before that, had seen an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse at Galerie Thannhauser in Munich. The paintings by the French artist were a source of great inspiration for both artists. The approach taken by Matisse and the Fauvist artists is clearly evident in Marc’s free handling of colour in Akt mit Katze.
Otto Mueller (1874–1930)
Five Nudes near the Water, around 1911
Tempera on canvas
Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen
Otto Mueller became a member of the Brücke in late 1910. Just prior to that he had got to know Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein in Berlin. In 1910 and 1911 he joined them in their summer sojourns on the Moritzburger lakes near Dresden, during which they worked together outdoors with nude models.
The painting in the exhibition is one of the many variations that Mueller did on the theme of the nude outdoors and in which he sought a harmony between man and nature. The artist has grouped four naked girls and a young man on the bank of a lake surrounded by trees. Striking features here are the blue contours of the bodies and the spontaneous brushwork.
Otto Mueller (1874–1930)
Boy among Foliate Plants, 1912
Woodcut on brownish paper
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
For his graphic oeuvre Mueller mainly worked with the technique of the lithograph. His few woodcuts came about through his contact with the Brücke group, where great importance was given to that printing technique. A lyrical atmosphere permeates Mueller’s prints, the delicate bodies are determined almost solely by their white contours.
The depictions of the boy and the girl, both sitting naked among reeds, clearly belong together. The artist later used the woodblocks for these sheets as panels for the door of his graphic art cabinet. Traces of the grooves with which the block was attached are still visible at the edges of the print of the boy. The other sheet was coloured by hand later.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Apples on blue, 1908
Oil on painting board
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Münter painted the still life Apples on blue in the late summer of 1908 under the influence of the defining impressions of nature in the Bavarian Alpine landscape. In this work the artist has abandoned perspective and arranged the motif on a two-dimensional plane. A green wall and a blue tablecloth meet as flat fields of colour. There is a bottle, a jug and three apples on the table top, which flaps downwards. Whereas Münter has grouped the two vessels without any shadow, the apples, which are worked out in greater detail, have been given a hint of a shadow by the darker brushstrokes. The composition of the picture and the expressive colourfulness visualise the artistic process of simplification and abstraction.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Great Autumn Tree, 1910
Oil on board
Privat Collection, Germany
Marianne von Werefkin was the artist who felt particularly bound to the work of the Nabis and to that of van Gogh and Gauguin. In 1906 she went to France to study and later passed on the ideas to Münter and Kandinsky. Münter built up her landscape out of colour planes, as was also characteristic of the Nabis. In doing so she developed a high degree of abstraction and this decisively shaped her understanding of a painting at that time. For a long time, however, her abstract paintings were withheld and not taken seriously. The insinuation that Münter was not able to paint in an abstract way – whereas Kandinsly was regarded as the inventor of abstraction – served entirely to exclude her from an art history of the avant-garde.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Kandinsky at a Table (sketch), around 1911
Oil on painting board
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
In addition to still lifes and landscapes, it was people in her circle of friends and acquaintances who also inspired Gabriele Münter to paint. Different sketches resulted, some of which are connected with later paintings, while others aspire to an artistic autonomy as portrait studies given their spontaneity and fleetingness. These include Kandinsky at a Table. The artist’s casual clothing, the white shirt and blue jacket, as well as the situation at the table with teapot and cup, conjure up a morning scene. Using a brush and highly diluted paint Münter applied the motif directly onto the artist’s board in a sequence of graphic painterly brushstrokes. The sketch was probably done in their joint house in Murnau and thus provides intimate insight into the artist-couple’s life together.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Landscape with Hut at Sunset, 1908
Oil on paper on cardboard
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky settled in the Munich district of Schwabing in late 1908. Prior to that, in late summer, they had discovered the Bavarian Alpine landscape near Murnau. The impressive natural setting and the clarity and brilliance which Münter saw in the colours inspired her to paint numerous landscapes. Münter’s works are indicative of the nascent artistic process of simplification and abstraction. Landscape with Hut at Sunset is painted in oil on cardboard and exhibits such simplified motifs. The colours are arranged in planes of partially unbroken shades. As a result, the planes themselves begin to constitute the motif.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Song, around 1912/13
Reverse glass painting
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Murnau was an important centre of reverse glass painting in Bavaria and it was in this context that the artists of the Blaue Reiter engaged with the popular, clearly graspable depictions of saints and with votive images. Gabriele Münter also copied the small panels, thereby swiftly acquiring a new formal idiom. Later she began to work according to her own designs. Lied shows a small girl with her hands folded in front of her. Her head is raised and she would seem to be both astonished and fascinated as she observes a number of birds flying above her. Against the backdrop of the Christian tradition of reverse glass painting, this image recalls the legend of Saint Francis’ sermon to the birds.
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Still Life with a Madonna and a Tea Pot, 1912/13
Oil on painting board
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz-Museum Gunzenhauser, Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
Several objects are grouped on a wooden table: an orange teapot on a tray, a brown clay
hen and two Madonnas. In the background two framed pictures are hanging on a blue wall. These were part of Münter’s collection of reverse glass painting, while the objects on the table were part of her folk art collection. Münter – like Kandinsky and Werefkin – was particularly interested in folk art and collected an extensive number of items. She was the first of the group to learn the technique of reverse glass painting.
The hen and the Madonna with patriarchal cross can also be found in other paintings by Münter. The artist often arranged items from her collection of folk art as a model for her paintings.
Emil Nolde (1867–1956)
Bridge, 1910
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Emil Nolde, who was older and also more famous than the founder-members of the Brücke artists’ group, was only a member of that group from 1906 to 1907. This painting is one of the artist’s first lake landscapes, which were among his favourite themes and which he painted in a shimmering late-impressionist atmospheric style. The low sun causes the sky and the water to radiate in a golden yellow shade.
In 1909 the artist spent his first summer in Ruttebühl near Nolde, his place of birth. The latter place inspired his artist’s name; he was actually called Emil Hansen.
Emil Nolde (1867–1956)
Lady Reading, 1906
Oil on canvas
Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Donation from trade and industry Schleswig-Holstein on the occasion of the 100th anniversary and the reopening of the Kunsthalle in 1957
In was in his paintings on the themes of gardens and flowers that Nolde gradually succeeded in imbuing colour with that determining expressive force so typical of Expressionism. His encounters with works by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch had a significant influence on Nolde’s work.
The woman in the white dress reading is Nolde’s wife Ada. She is totally concentrated and absorbed in her reading. Despite the title, however, she is not the main focus of the depiction. Instead she contributes towards enlivening the scene.
As in the case of the Impressionist Claude Monet, the garden was also an important source of inspiration for Nolde. In 1928 he had a garden laid out in Seebüll in Nordfriesland which he then used as a motif for his paintings.
Emil Nolde (1867–1956)
Still Life with Yellow Horse, 1914
Oil on canvas
Kunst- und Museumsverein im Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Before the outbreak of the First World War, in 1913 Emil Nolde accompanied an expedition of the German Imperial Colonial Office (Reichskolonialamt) through Russia, China, Korea and Japan to New Guinea. Nolde was already familiar with the art of the so-called »natural peoples« thanks to his visits to the Berlin Ethnological Museum and other ethnographic collections and so was interested in supposedly »primitive primal art«.
He has placed two such figures in this still life, a ceramic horse from East Asia and a Buddha figure from China, perhaps from his own collection. They are in front of a fabric with fabulous creatures that he had designed and his wife Ada had woven.
Max Pechstein (1881–1955)
Four Pages from the Portfolio: Exotic Heads, 1917
Woodcut on greenish laid paper
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
The four woodcuts of Exotic Heads dating from 1919 published as a portfolio by Fritz Gurlitt demonstrate the artist’s interest in non-European cultures. In these depictions he combined elements from African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art. This does not constitute a precise ethnographic account, however, nor render the individuality of the persons portrayed, but functions first and foremost to underscore the exotic nature of non-European cultures. Alongside the stylized physiognomies, Pechstein paid special attention to such decorative features as elaborate hairstyles, headdresses and ornamentation. In addition to his own studies in Palau, which he visited in 1914, and in museums of ethnology, he also had recourse to illustrations from publications.
Max Pechstein (1881–1955)
The Artist’s Son on a Sofa, 1917
Oil on canvas
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Pechstein undertook a several-month-long journey with his wife Lotte in 1914. They visited the Palau islands in the South Seas, which had been part of the German Empire since 1899. In retrospect he described this journey as a highlight, the happiest time of his whole life. After being discharged from military service in the war, Pechstein returned to Berlin in early 1917, where he made this portrait of his four-year-old son Frank reclining on a sofa. Frank is stretched out on a chaise longue and propping himself up with one arm. The wall behind the sofa is decorated with a mural depicting glorified South Sea motifs, several animals and an indigenous woman eating an animal. Her acquiescent pose and her half-naked state are in stark contrast to the fully dressed and self-confident pose of the reclining boy, unwittingly conveying the inappropriate hegemonic relationship between the white colonial power and the native population.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Nude, 1909
Woodcut on grey paper
Printing Block for: Nude, 1909
Lime wood
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
This woodcut of a female nude has a decidedly painterly air. The pattern on the draped rug, which almost takes on the character of fabric as the printed and unprinted areas flowing effortlessly into each other, is most impressive. The influence of Edvard Munch is clearly noticeable. The Brücke painters first enjoyed an early opportunity to see the Norwegian artist’s paintings in Dresden in 1906. Schmidt-Rottluff’s encounter with Munch’s prints in 1907 was also of prime importance, when he visited the Hamburg collection of Gustav Schliefer, the director of the district court, where he could study these works. He greatly appreciated their formal idiom and expressive power.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Visit, 1910
Oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Permanent Loan of the Free State of Saxony
This painting is one of the artist’s early depictions of interiors. We see two seated women, who are not characterized as individuals, even though they were modelled on personal contacts. This is confirmed by a similar drawing on a postcard from Dangast. This shows that one of the female figures must be a depiction of his younger sister Gertrud. The other younger girl could be a holiday acquaintance, Elle Kohlsted (from Berlin), who was fifteen years of age at the time.
The ornate frame of the painting is of special significance. The local carpenter Wilhelm Voge provided the basic wooden frames for the works painted in Dangast up until 1912; Schmidt-Rottluff himself carved the abstract ornamentation and painted the frame in colour.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Small Garden, 1906
Oil on cardboard
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Loan from a private owner
Yellow, green, blue, white, pink and a few red brushstrokes combine to form a view into a garden. This is an unusually daring composition painted by the young Schmidt-Rottluff. As if one had just got up from the garden bench partially visible in the foreground to the right, one gazes down a path that leads to luxuriant vegetation at the bottom of the garden. The vegetation is not depicted to make it recognizable, but is formed exclusively from colourful interwoven strokes of the brush. There are no contours to separate one plant from the next. The pastose application of the paint is typical of the Schmidt-Rottluff paintings done on the Baltic island of Alsen in the company of Emil Nolde. Nolde also painted his first flower and garden pictures at this time – and this confirms how much the two artists influenced each other during those weeks, at least from a thematic point of view.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Landscape in Autumn, 1910
Oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
This landscape was painted in the autumn of 1910. Schmidt-Rottluff stayed at the North Sea resort of Dangast from April until well into November and this proved to be an exceptionally productive time for his work. In Dangast he worked alone during several summers, but sometimes also with his Dresden colleagues, artists Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, and the painter Emma Ritter from Hamburg. Emma Ritter was greatly impressed by Schmidt-Rottluff’s painting and spoke of it as something, which she »…had never encountered before anywhere else in contemporary art.«
In view of its expressive wealth of colour and quickly applied gestural brushwork this painting counts as one of the supreme early examples of the so-called collective style of the Brücke artists. The colours red and green clash as colour contrasts, prompting the colour chords to vibrate and resonate.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Children Reading (Lamplight), 1906
Oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Loan from a private owner
The subject matter of the painting only becomes clearer when viewed at a distance, when the heads bent over to concentrate on a book or a game become recognizable. The motif develops out of the colours alone. Wavy brushstrokes give rise both to the details within the intense colour scheme and the overall composition, with the paint marks being continually superimposed over each other. The theme of the painting represents one of the domestic scenes Schmidt-Rottluff observed, drawing on his familiarity with his own family background and younger siblings. The children depicted here in 1906, however, were younger than his siblings and must have been based on models from elsewhere. They were probably children living in Dresden, where Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel painted similar motifs during the same period.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Self Portrait, 1908
Etching
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
Etching plate for: Self Portrait, 1908
Metal
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Loan from a private owner
Self-portraits made using various techniques played a prominent role in Schmidt-Rottluff’s oeuvre in all his creative phases. Alongside some lithographs, this etching represents one of the very early examples of self-appraisal by the artist. In this self-portrait dating from 1908 the artist was actually only 26 years of age, but he seems considerably older than that. The head is cropped at the top by the edge of the plate. His neck and any transition to his shoulders are missing, so that the physiognomy commands full attention. Gentle brushwork evokes a thoroughly atmospheric backdrop. Deeper etched strokes emphasize the eyes, while their pupils and the wrinkles on his forehead underscore the artist’s earnest and thoughtful facial expression. Along the margins of the plate his self-portrait is surrounded by closely aligned streaks. The idea of a frame is intensified by the bevelled corners of the plate from which the etching was printed. That plate is now also in the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz collection.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Spit Landscape, 1913
Oil on canvas
Buchheim Museum der Phantasie, Bernried am Starnberger See
Schmidt-Rottluff painted this landscape while staying in Nida, a resort town located on the Curonian Spit in what is now Lithuania. An artists’ colony had gathered in Nida and had attracted many artists, including Max Pechstein. Encouraged by his colleague’s enthusiasm, Schmidt-Rottluff decided to spend the summer of 1913 there.
He used simple artistic means to evoke a sense of space, based on the staggered arrangement of the landscape components and the way the colour is distributed – with bright ochre in the foreground and cool blue and green hues in the background.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Norwegian Landscape (Skrygedal), 1911
Oil on canvas
Buchheim Museum der Phantasie, Bernried am Starnberger See
The painting Norwegian Landscape by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff is defined by its bright colours: the light green meadow in the foreground, the vibrant red of the distant mountain range framed by dark green mountain slopes to the left and right, along with the intense blue of the narrow strip of sky. The colours are applied in compact planes, without the painter adding any further details to the objects. There are similar features in his depiction to Edvard Munch’s landscapes; the latter spent some time in Germany and was highly respected by the Expressionists. Schmidt-Rottluff tried in vain to persuade Munch to become a member of the Brücke and to participate in group exhibitions. In 1911 Schmidt-Rottluff visited Norway himself, where the Norwegian Landscape was painted.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
Ships (Sailing on the Elbe near Hamburg I), 1911
Woodcut
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
The woodcut by Schmidt-Rottluff entitled Ships is a product of the time when he stayed in Hamburg for several months, where he had his own studio. The work is one of those made in 1911, which are characterized by deliberate formal reduction and the geometric ordering of the planes. The landscape is rendered through an interplay of contrasting black and white areas: three dark sailing boats against the calm white surface of the water, bounded by the dark descending diagonal of the embankment. The sky is inserted into this composition as another bright triangular shape, while the sun’s disk casts vertical rays across the river. The large-format woodcuts of this period can indeed be regarded as a highlight in the artist’s graphic oeuvre, with their aspiration to achieve an expressive but simple formal idiom.
[Showcase]
The exquisite collection of handcrafted works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff formerly in the possession of Dr. Victor and Hedda Peters was family-owned for decades. It includes stone carvings, works made of horn, wood, paper, metal and textile all of extraordinary quality. It thus illustrates the artist’s multifaceted talent. In the oeuvre of Schmidt-Rottluff handcraft art is on an equal footing with painting, graphic art and sculpture. Of all the Brücke artists, he was the one who devoted himself most to jewellery, designing a large number of chains, pendants, bracelets, brooches, watch-chains and rings out of the most varied of materials. Making them was not just an incidental playful activity on the part of Schmidt-Rottluff, but rather an expression of his specific will to form and artistic craftsmanship.
[Showcase]
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff did not actually travel to Africa personally, instead he oriented himself around sculptures he encountered in exhibitions and collections in Germany. He even had his own collection of non-European, above all, West African sculptures which clearly had an influence on his paintings as well as his handcrafted decorative objects. In addition to the appropriation of ways of depicting that were removed from their original cultural context, positive stereotypes were allocated to the non-European living standards. The alien was perceived as pre-civilized and constituted for the Brücke members a simile for their own ideas of naturalness, primitiveness and emotionality.
The magazine Der Sturm and the Sturm Gallery
The publisher, gallerist, writer and musician Herwarth Walden was one of the most important promoters of the avant-gardes in Germany. In 1910 he launched an, initially weekly, magazine called Der Sturm, a Wochenschrift für Kultur und Künste. It continued to appear until 1932 and was one of the most outstanding publications on the art and literature of Expressionism. The exhibition contains two cover pages of the magazine with reproductions of works by the Blauer Reiter artists Klee and Kandinsky.
In 1912 Walden opened a gallery of the same name in Berlin which exhibited representatives of different tendencies in the international avant-garde, some of them for the first time. Among those on show were representatives of the Blauer Reiter, the French Fauvists and Italian Futurism. Walden devoted solo exhibitions at his gallery to the Blauer Reiter artists Kandinsky, Münter, Marc and Macke.
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938)
Iron Foundry in Oberstdorf, 1912
Oil on tempera, on paper, on board
Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal
Marianne von Werefkin was a private student in Ilja Repin’s studio in St. Petersburg, where she also got to know her later partner Alexej Jawlensky, with whom she moved to Munich in 1896. In the years that followed, she ceased painting works of her own so as to devote herself fully to promoting her partner’s talent. It was 1907 before Werefkin started to paint again. With the work Iron Foundry in Oberstdorf she focussed great attention on the changing world of work at the beginning of the 20th century. Dark shades dominate in this painting of smoking chimney stack above the roofs of an Alpine town.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Werefkin and Jawlensky had to leave Germany for Switzerland, where she lived until her death.
Annual portfolios of the »Brücke«
From 1906 to 1911, the artists’ group »Brücke« published annual editions of original graphic art for its passive members. The passive members promoted the artists and also supported them ideally. The annual portfolios were not only a return for the membership fee, but also served to disseminate their art and introduce the public to it.
A total of seven portfolios were designed, although the last one, dedicated to Pechstein, was withdrawn because he left the group in the spring of 1912. Each portfolio contains three to four prints, some of which are complemented by wood-cut envelopes. The woodcuts and lithographs are hand-printed, often designed directly for the edition.
While the first three folders contain works by various artists, the folders from 1909 onwards each focus on one artist.
The journal Der Sturm and the Sturm Gallery
The publisher, gallery owner, writer and musician Herwarth Walden was one of the most important promoters of the avant-garde in Germany. In 1910, he founded Der Sturm, a magazine initially conceived as a weekly for culture and the arts, which existed until 1932 and was one of the most important publications of Expressionist art and literature. The exhibition includes two covers of the magazine with reproductions of works by the »Blauer Reiter« artists Klee and Kandinsky.
In 1912, Walden opened a gallery of the same name in Berlin, where representatives of various currents of the international avant-garde were exhibited, some for the first time. Among others, representatives of the »Blauer Reiter«, the French Fauvists and Italian Futurism were on show. Walden dedicated solo exhibitions in his gallery to the »Blauer Reiter« artists Kandinsky, Münter, Marc and Macke.
