Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) is regarded as one of German Expressionism’s most important artists. He was already internationally renowned during his lifetime. After moving to Switzerland in 1917, his style underwent significant change. It was at this time that Kirchner increasingly felt a need to explain his art. In letters, texts written under a pseudonym and personal statements, he sought to guide the interpretation of his works and in particular work out his own role in Modern Art.

A pivotal, yet largely ignored event in this staging of the self is the major retrospective of 1933 at Kunsthalle Bern – the most comprehensive exhibition during his lifetime. Kirchner curated it himself, selecting the works, deciding on their hanging as well as conceiving and designing both the poster and catalogue, together with Max Huggler (1903–1994), director of the Kunsthalle and, from 1944, director of Kunstmuseum Bern.

The exhibition Kirchner × Kirchner takes this historic exhibition as its point of departure, bringing Kirchner’s own perspective on his work to the fore. It is presenting him for the first time as an exhibition organiser and curator of his own oeuvre, making it clear that, for him, the presentation of his works was itself part of the art.

Kunstmuseum Bern is inviting visitors to rediscover Kirchner’s work – and to encounter one of the most important artists of the 20^th century in an unusual and surprising way.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born on 6 May 1880 in Aschaffenburg and grew up in Chemnitz. After studying architecture in Dresden, he co-founded the artists’ group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1905 with Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Fritz Bleyl. The group’s objective was to develop a direct, expressive style that transcended academic conventions.

In 1911, Kirchner moved to Berlin, where urban life began informing his art. The artists’ group Die Brücke disbanded in 1913 due, not least, to the growing tensions between its members. With the outbreak of World War I, Kirchner volunteered for military service in 1915, ultimately suffering a physical and mental breakdown. In 1917 he began spending time in Davos to convalesce, settling there permanently in 1918. Nature and rural life were to subsequently become central motifs in his art.

After the Nazis had seized power in 1933, Kirchner’s art became increasingly ostracised. Over 600 works were confiscated, many of them being publicly defamed in 1937 as part of the propaganda exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art). On 15 June 1938 Kirchner committed suicide in Frauenkirch near Davos.

Photo credits:
Aura Hertwig-Brendel. Portrait of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (excerpt), 1913/14. Photograph. The Estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner © Nachlass Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, courtesy Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern

During his years as a member of the artists’ group Die Brücke (1905–1913), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner developed an expressive style involving vivid colours, powerful forms and animated lines. His favoured motifs included scenes of urban life – people in motion, fleeting glances and brief encounters – but also circuses, niteries and cafés. Such locations were depicted as if they were stages for a masquerade, reflecting a modern, restless society.

In contrast, Kirchner’s nudes were intimate, often being staged using friends. Here, too, the bodies remain in motion – raw, direct and detached from social norms. In the landscape paintings of these years, his longing for the primal and a life in harmony with nature became more intense. They seem like tranquil worlds in stark contrast to the dynamism of the metropolis.

The works from his Brücke period are regarded as the pinnacle of his oeuvre. Kirchner nevertheless reworked many of them after 1920 – even retroactively adding, to some of them, an earlier date of when they had been made. Some paintings suffered damage on their way from Berlin to Davos, while others no longer met his later standards. Perhaps he was also consciously seeking to distance himself from his former colleagues in Die Brücke and position himself as a stylistic forerunner of Modern Art. The revised works appear more structured, employing more lucid forms and homogeneous planes of colour approaching the aesthetics of the 1920s. It was a strategy that enabled Kirchner to retrospectively construct a more rigorous development of his art.

The 1933 retrospective at Kunsthalle Bern demonstrated the importance Kirchner placed on his works on paper. In the basement, he presented around 130 drawings, while concurrently exhibiting a selection of 49 prints at the Gutekunst & Klipstein gallery. For Kirchner, these works were a key to understanding his oeuvre.

His drawings and prints remain among Kirchner’s most significant contributions to Modern Art. In them, he succeeded in condensing his ideas about art, employing a radical clarity while seeking new forms of expression for line, plane and colour. For him, these were autonomous works of art, ones in which subjects central to his work and stylistic changes were particularly evident.

Between 1907 and 1914, Kirchner was able to develop a powerful, distinctive visual language. His motifs reflect locations that had played a significant role in his life – Dresden, the Moritzburg Ponds, Berlin and the island of Fehmarn – ranging from vibrant urban life to the tranquillity of nature. His stylistic development, however, follows less such biographical events than its own artistic logic.

After moving to Switzerland in 1917, his range of motifs expanded to include scenes of rural life, animals and the Alpine landscape. In formal terms however, a continuity with his earlier works remained evident. The works created on the Stafelalp uplands above Davos appear both dynamic and nervous – but also more lucid and tranquil in structure.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner considered exhibiting as a part of his artistic practice. He did not simply want to display his works, but rather consciously organise them, situating them in relation to both the space and the viewers. He was less concerned with a chronological sequence than with making interconnections between subjects, forms and colours visible.

The Kirchner × Kirchner exhibition takes its cue from Kirchner’s 1933 retrospective at Kunsthalle Bern. Pairs of paintings have been hung as they were then, motifs are consciously connected by lines of sight through multiple galleries, while colours and contrasts have been deliberately staged. Such an approach enables visitors to experience how Kirchner himself likewise understood the hanging of his works as an artistic composition – one that is intuitive and vibrant.

The works on display in this gallery date from his Swiss period (1917–1932) and were part of the 1933 exhibition – some continually, some only temporarily and some only in the background, since works were being sold and replaced during the course of the exhibition. The selection demonstrates that Kirchner not only painted Alpine scenes and rural life, but also modern Davos with its ice skaters, dancers, street scenes and modern Alpine architecture. The 1933 exhibition was dominated by portraits and nudes – a focus that remains evident in Kirchner × Kirchner, underlining Kirchner’s image of himself as a painter of the human figure.

One highlight is the reunion of the monumental pair of works, Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen [Sunday in the Alps. Scene at the Well] (1923–24 / around 1929) and Sonntag der Bergbauern [Mountain Peasants on Sunday] (1923–24 / 1926). Both paintings opened the 1933 retrospective at Kunsthalle Bern, where they were hung side by side in the foyer. Although intended as pendants, they have never been shown together since. Alpsonntag. Szene am Brunnen was acquired by Kunstmuseum Bern that same year – the only painting purchased by a Swiss museum during Kirchner’s lifetime. After Kirchner’s death, Sonntag der Bergbauern remained in his estate for decades before becoming, in the mid-1980s, part of the Federal Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. The fact that the work, now permanently installed in the Federal Chancellery, has been made available on loan for this exhibition represents a rare and significant exception.

The human figure is situated at the centre of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s oeuvre. The works on paper, dating from 1905 to 1933, being presented here, represent an impressive demonstration of just that. Portraits, nudes and scenes of dancing are among his recurring motifs. They reflect the continuous development of his style as well as the way he saw the human body.

Kirchner considered humans to be the origin of all art. For him, it was not external resemblance that was decisive, but rather expression and the inner experience. It was especially in his portraits that he embarked on a search for a deeper truth. As a result, his models’ faces, rather than demonstrating anatomical accuracy, instead express emotional states and character traits.

The nudes likewise consciously depart from academic tradition. Instead of idealised bodies, they depict the naked human being – directly, sensually, either in the studio or in nature, often in informal gatherings. Kirchner eschewed naturalistic details in favour of a more immediate means of expression.

In dance, Kirchner discovered a central motif for depicting movement and rhythm. Whether in variety shows, expressive dance or in the form of rituals – the dancing body became, for him, a symbol of vibrant energy. With just a few lines, he was able to capture fleeting moments, subsequently condensing them into powerful images of dynamic movement.

The works that Ernst Ludwig Kirchner created in Davos from the mid-1920s onwards were long considered to be stylistically inconsistent and less significant. However, the artist himself viewed these years differently, describing them in 1933 as the pinnacle of his oeuvre.

The paintings in this gallery were created between 1924 and 1933. It was during this period that Kirchner developed a new visual language, which he himself dubbed Neuer Stil (new style). The spontaneous expressiveness of the Brücke period gave way to a more serene, abstract formal language. It was informed by clear contours, rounded forms and compositional coherence. Vivid colours, vibrant lines and symbolically condensed forms lent many of the paintings an almost visionary aura.

In 1933, Kirchner emphasised both his art’s ability to transform itself and the inner continuity of his practice. Even in his late work, he remained committed to the goal of condensing subjective perception and existential experience into visual expression – now using a means of expression that he considered appropriate to the times. In the catalogue accompanying the 1933 exhibition, Kirchner described this period – under the pseudonym Louis de Marsalle – as a moment of inward reflection and further development. As early as 1927, he had noted in his diary:

‘I’m gaining increasingly clarity and purpose in my work. I understand the completely new quality that it had from the very beginning [...].’

Kirchner x Kirchner
Kunstmuseum Bern
12.9.2025–11.1.2026

Curator: Nadine Franci

Exhibition catalogue: Kirchner x Kirchner, edited by Nina Zimmer and Nadine Franci, Hirmer Verlag, München 2025. With contributions from Nadine Franci and Katharina Neuburger as well as a preface by Nina Zimmer

Exhibition design: Atelier Arbre

Audioguide
Realisation: tonwelt GmbH

Digital Guide
Implementation: NETNODE AG
Project: Andriu Deflorin, Cédric Zubler
 

With the support of:

Medienpartnerin:

Kunstmuseum Bern
Hodlerstrasse 8–12, 3011 Bern
+41 31 328 09 44
info@kunstmuseumbern.ch
kunstmuseumbern.ch/en/kirchner

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