Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Work / Highlight / Biography

(Aschaffenburg 1880 - 1938 Davos)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in Aschaffenburg on May 6, 1880. In 1901 he began studying architecture in Dresden. In 1905, Kirchner founded Die Brücke artists’ association with Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. In 1906, the Die Brücke manifesto was published as a woodcut by Kirchner. It states: “Everyone belongs to us who reproduces directly and without falsification that which urges him to create.”

In 1912, he met his partner Erna Schilling, a nightclub dancer and model. In 1913, the active members of Die Brücke decided to publish a chronicle to document the identity of the group. Kirchner wrote this chronicle, but the other members, who found the text one-sided and subjective, refused to publish it. As a result, Kirchner left the group, which disbanded shortly afterwards.

Kirchner entered military service in the First World War but was discharged due to his mental state. This was followed by several stays in sanatoriums in Germany and Switzerland. In 1918, he moved into a farmhouse in Davos, where he lived until the end of his life. Erna Schilling moved in with him in 1923.

In the last years of his life, Kirchner painted over many of his works, in fear of the invasion of the German National Socialists, who defamed his works as “degenerate art”. Kirchner took his own life on June 15, 1938. Erna Schilling became the caretaker of his estate.