E. L. Kirchner Biography

Maria and Ernst Kirchner lived in Aschaffenburg in Bavaria when their son Ernst Ludwig was born on 6 May 1880. He was an attentive boy, spending a lot of time at the window of his room watching the train station opposite. As a young child he observed his immediate environment closely: the buildings around him, the busy activity at the station and the people on the street fascinated him. He captured all of these impressions on paper in – sometimes coloured – pencil. 

Kirchner’s intense desire to become a painter was met with tepid enthusiasm by his parents. His father in particular wished a socially more accepted profession for his son. Consequently, Kirchner agreed on a compromise that was not entirely unfavourable for him: after passing his school-leaving examination he began to study architecture at the university in Dresden, but attended primarily artistic courses such as freehand and life drawing or composition. Kirchner completed his first works there and in many aspects his studies determined his future path. They provided him not just with fundamental artistic training, but also allowed him to receive financial support from his family, therefore permitting him the freedom to intensively commit himself to art. Kirchner enjoyed the student life, meeting with friends, making trips to the Moritzburg Lakes and working out new artistic modes of expression with other young students. The founding of the artists’ group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in 1905, together with his fellow students Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, opened a path to the art world. He networked with other artists, visited museums and exhibitions, and caroused in bars and cafés with his artist friends at night. One evening he met his first girlfriend, Doris Große, known as “Dodo”. She worked as a milliner by day and as a model at night, appearing in numerous works by Kirchner from this period. 
 

Kirchner fashioned his life as an artist entirely according to his own ideas. He was “anti-bourgeoise” and lived free from social conventions, following the tenets of the new Lebensreform (social reform) movement. On his trips he celebrated an imagined primordial life and strove for the unity of human and nature. This search was sometimes carried out with the canoe, sometimes with a bow and arrow or a boomerang – and almost always stark naked. 

“Each piece of furniture, each carpet had been made by him. When you entered his room, you felt as though you were on another planet or in another distant century.” 

For his life as a bohemian Kirchner required the appropriate spaces. His studios in Dresden and in Berlin were at the same time workspaces, ateliers in which to stage an artistic life and cosy places of retreat. Surrounded by paintings, drawings and sketches, by textiles and furniture that he had designed himself and by his sculptures, here Kirchner met with his friends. For a brief time Kirchner attempted to earn his living as a teacher, founding the MUIM Institute in Berlin together with Max Pechstein. But with only two students the academy was not a success. By contrast, as a painter Kirchner was successful, initially with the group Die Brücke and later, after its disbandment in 1913, as a solo artist, making the acquaintance of important friends and supporters.

Kirchner was fascinated by the world of dance, in particular by the variety theatre. One evening he met the sisters Gerda und Erna Schilling, the latter becoming his partner and accompanying him for the rest of his life. Yet Kirchner was young and internally restless, driven by a constant search, by a yearning for naturalness and authenticity, for a place of longing. He found this place on the island of Fehmarn. The rough Baltic Sea with its breakers and the island with its steep cliffs enthralled him. Just like when he was a child, he recorded the life around him. People bathing in the sea, children playing on the beach, the singular nature of Fehmarn, which almost became a jungle in Kirchner’s work. He visited the island a total of four time, always with others. Sometimes with the siblings Hans and Emy Frisch – from the latter he learned the technique of photography; sometimes with Heckel and his girlfriend, the dancer Sidi Riha. But mostly with Erna, spending a charming summer in an attic room in the Staberhuk lighthouse with the Lüthmann family. 
 

Yet even this paradise could not keep away the outbreak of World War I or drive away the dark clouds that lay over Kirchner’s emotional state. He increasingly suffered from nervous anxiety attacks and indulged in excessive alcohol consumption. In search of a solution he feverishly looked for a way to survive the war. By volunteering for the army he hoped to at least be able to choose himself which branch of the armed services, but was instead assigned to a field artillery regiment in Halle an der Saale. Although he initially depicted himself as a soldier in his studio, he increasingly chafed under the military discipline and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown. Leave of absence from military service, however, did not mean for Kirchner the end of his suffering, but the beginning of a years-long journey through various sanatoriums, different diagnoses and an intensive struggle with his health. 
 

But how did Kirchner arrive in Davos? Following the recommendation of a friend he travelled to the mountain village in January 1917. But at the beginning of February he hastily returned to Berlin. It was simply too cold for him in the Grisons canton. Yet this brief stay in the Swiss mountains seemed to have sparked something in him – an inspiration that motivated him to undertake a new trip in May. The state of his health was fearful. Along with addiction to medications, he suffered from paralysis of the limbs and impaired consciousness. Together with his nurse Hedwig, he spent the Swiss summer on the Stafelalp mountain in the Rüesch hut, doing what he always did in such magnificent settings. He recorded his environment in drawings that depicted his fascination for the mountain world and for the simple life of the farmers. Kirchner quickly recognised that Davos was his future. It began in the house known as “In den Lärchen” (In the Larch Trees).

In order to feel at home in his new surroundings, at the beginning of 1919 he had the first of his things transported from Berlin to Davos. These included his beloved printing press and his self-made carpets, which he urgently needed in order to feel well. The hut on the Stafelalp remained his cherished summer residence. Kirchner spent the sun-warmed months here among flowering meadows, grazing cows and the life of the cowherds.

His last home was the Haus auf dem Wildboden, to which he moved in October 1923 and where he set up his sculpture studio outside. The years in Davos were marked by a fervent drive to create and his will to express himself artistically, producing not just paintings and prints, but also photographs, drawings, textiles and sculptures. In the mountains Kirchner discovered an unconditional freedom that noticeably improved his health and which is reflected in his works in new stylistic forms. 

One could naturally assume that as an idiosyncratic artist Kirchner retreated to his mountain hut, accompanied only by Erna, his studio decorations and nature. Yet, on the contrary, he lived as a surprisingly social person. He sought out contact with other artists, gallerists, museums and collectors almost aggressively. He was visited by members of his family and by young artists such as Hermann Scherer, Albert Müller and Paul Camenisch, who worked with him and learned from him. In addition, in the Wildboden area he was the only person to own a gramophone and organised merry dance evenings in his home for his neighbours, events that recall his love for the variety theatre. This is also apparent in his close relationship with the Zurich dancer Nina Hard (Engelhardt), who spent the summer at his house and sat as a model for numerous pictures. Another woman likewise became an important figure for his artistic expression: in 1921 he met the weaver Lise Gujer, who in the following years created striking tapestries according to his designs. Life in the Swiss mountains seemed to benefit Kirchner. 
 

Yet this apparent idyll was clouded by a shadow. Kirchner was afraid: German cultural policies and the rise to power of the Nazis worried him. This affected his health primarily, the panic attacks returned and he resorted again to medications containing morphine. This was a period of retreat – Kirchner focused now on Switzerland above all, strove to strengthen professional contacts, but could not evade world politics. While his first exhibition in the United States was held in 1937, the Nazis removed 770 of his works from museums in Germany. Kirchner was torn by fears. He dreaded an invasion of German troops in the Grisons and impulsively destroyed many of his printing blocks and sculptures. It seems as though he saw a small sliver of hope when, on 10 May 1938, he submitted to the Davos authorities an application to marry Erna, but he withdrew it shortly afterwards. On 15 June he shot himself near his home on the Wildboden. His grave can still be seen today in the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Davos.