Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Couple Taking a Stroll is a colour woodcut made by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in 1907 and was acquired in 1948 as a donation from the heirs of the Carl Hagemann estate for the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. The summery scene of a leisurely walk in four colours is thematically still very close to Kirchners paintings, which emphasizes the strong influence by the late impressionism and Vincent van Gogh. But the specialties of Kirchners technique are unique: The impressionist motif was printed from only two blocks in two colours, entirely without the aid of outlines to contain the forms. To this end, Kirchner began by gouging out the figure of the woman, the sun spots and the man’s hat, and printed this block in blue. The cut-out areas appear in the white of the paper. In the second block, he cut out only the two strollers; then he printed this block in orange on the same sheet. By printing over blue with orange, he obtained the green of nature. Particularly in colour woodcuts like Couple Taking a Stroll Kirchner tested the limits and possibilities of the technique with great mastery. His technique to obtain new colour combinations is also prominent in his later works. What is more, he often applied the printing ink not with a roller but with a brush, whose lively strokes make every print a unicum. In general, he printed his woodcuts by hand or on his own press, producing only a few copies from a given block.
This woodcut is a part of the exhibition “The Mysteries of Material: Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff” at the Städel Museum. It will explore the reciprocal relationships between woodcut and wooden sculpture in the oeuvres of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Erich Heckel (1883–1970) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976). Don't miss it, if you're in Frankfurt. It closes on 13 October.
P.S. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists' group Die Brücke. Later his works were branded as “degenerate” by the Nazis. Read more here.