Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Friends

Book excerpt: Ernst Kirchner, seminal expressionist painter and founding member of the influential artists' collective Die Brücke, came to the Swiss mountains during World War I to recuperate from a nervous breakdown.Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his Friends is the first book to explore how Kirchner became a role model, teacher, and mentor for younger artists during his time in Davos. The momentous artistic exchange between Kirchner and his young admirers--whose ranks included the German Philipp Bauknecht, the Dutch Jan Wiegers, and the members of the Swiss Gruppe Rot-Blau--established a dialogue that had a formative influence on the direction of European art in the twentieth century. This matchless volume provides a record of the extraordinary bond that developed between a legendary--yet ailing--artist and the up-and-coming Gruppe Rot-Blaue in Switzerland.