Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig (1880–1938)

German artist. He was a leading member of the expressionist die Brücke group in Dresden from 1905 and in Berlin from 1911. In Berlin he painted city scenes and portraits, using lurid colours and bold diagonal paint strokes recalling woodcut technique.

Having studied architecture in Dresden, he studied painting in Munich. He formed die Brücke with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, his knowledge of van Gogh now being combined with an awareness of medieval art and tribal sculpture (which he found in the ethnographic department of Dresden museum) to produce stark, flat forms, vigorously painted in strong, often harsh colours. Characteristic is his Self-Portrait with Model 1909 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg). In time his colours became more subdued, his works, particularly his landscapes, more sedate.

Discharged from the army on medical grounds, he settled in Switzerland 1917 and spent the rest of his life there. In 1937 the Nazis condemned his work as Degenerate Art. He committed suicide the following year.