Bern Kunsthalle: März 33: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Davos

Art Historical Context

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's *Bern Kunsthalle: März 33: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Davos* (1933) is a striking color woodcut poster announcing an exhibition of the artist's Davos-period works at the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland. Kirchner, a pioneering German Expressionist and co-founder of the Die Brücke group, sought refuge in the Swiss Alps town of Davos from 1917 onward due to health struggles and political turmoil. This large-scale print (nearly 100 x 75 cm) captures the rugged mountain landscapes that inspired his later oeuvre, rendered with bold, simplified forms and vivid hues characteristic of his mature style. The medium—a color woodcut on heavy wove paper—highlights Kirchner's mastery of printmaking, a technique he championed for its raw, direct energy. Woodcuts allowed him to carve expressive lines and layer intense colors, evoking emotional intensity over photographic realism, much like his paintings. Printed just months after the Nazis seized power in Germany, where Kirchner's art was soon branded "degenerate," this poster symbolizes a fleeting moment of recognition abroad amid rising persecution. Today, housed in the National Gallery of Art as a gift from Ruth Cole Kainen, it offers visitors a window into Kirchner's resilient creativity and the cultural exile of modernist artists. A testament to Expressionism's vitality, it invites us to ponder art's power in defiant spaces.

About the Artist

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner · 1880–1938

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born on May 6, 1880, in Aschaffenburg, Germany, to parents Ernst and Maria Kirchner, part of a family of Prussian descent that frequently relocated due to his father's career as a chemical technician. After early schooling in various towns, he studied architecture at the Königliche Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Dresden from 1901 to 1905, taking courses i...