“I wrote to Glaser that I expect an international exhibition, where Picasso and I are to be shown side by side.”
Kirchner to Frédéric Bauer, 28/01/1933
In 1933, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner wrote with confidence that he expected an international exhibition in which his works would be shown alongside those of Pablo Picasso. What remained a wish at the time now becomes reality: Kirchner.Picasso brings two of the most influential artists of modernism into direct visual dialogue for the first time.
The exhibition invites visitors to see two towering figures of art history anew—through a differentiated, comparative lens, and with a relevance that feels strikingly contemporary.
Both artists worked during a period of profound social change. Industrialisation, urbanisation, and political tensions demanded new artistic responses. Kirchner and Picasso each developed distinctive visual languages through which they engaged with their own time and left a lasting mark on modernism.
At the heart of the exhibition is painting, complemented by selected graphic works, drawings, and sculptures. Around 100 works, alongside numerous international loans from major collections, open up new perspectives on the work of Kirchner and Picasso.
Picasso is regarded as a key figure of Cubism, Kirchner as a central voice of Expressionism. Both stand for artistic renewal. Particular attention is given to the year 1932, when Kirchner visited the major Picasso retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich. His intense engagement with Picasso’s work had a lasting impact and led to a significant development in his painting, especially in the so-called New Style.
The exhibition questions the long-maintained separation of their oeuvres and invites viewers to reconsider Kirchner and Picasso—not hierarchically, but on equal footing. Differences become visible alongside unexpected affinities, formal parallels alongside divergent artistic attitudes.
The exhibition is a collaboration between the Kirchner Museum Davos and the LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster.