The street (Kirchner)

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The street (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner)
The street
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , 1913
Oil on canvas
120.6 x 91.1 cm
Museum of Modern Art , New York

The street is the title of a painting by the painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from the cycle of street scenes . It dates from 1913 and is currently in the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art , New York.

description

In the center of the picture are two well-dressed cocottes, surrounded by a multitude of men strolling through a big city street. The sequence of one and the same man in different posture and movement sequences is very clear. The man in the foreground, who is turned to the right and looking into a shop window, is repeated by four figures facing the women in the right background and another five blurred figures in the left background. The men in the picture are all shown with high hats and black coats. The high-contrast, sometimes shrill colors and the perspective of a tilted structure convey both the magic and the uncertainty and instability in city life.

Provenance

The painting was sold in 1920 by Galerie Schames, Frankfurt am Main, to the Berlin National Gallery and exhibited in the Kronprinzenpalais . On July 7, 1937, the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda confiscated the picture as part of the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign and exhibited it in the eponymous vicious exhibition in Munich until November 1937 and then at the touring exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, Düsseldorf and Salzburg. From October 1938 it was stored in the Schönhausen Castle depot and in February 1939 it was sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York via the art dealer Karl Buchholz , and it has been part of its collection ever since.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Catalog raisonné No. 364, based on: Donald E. Gordon: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. With a critical catalog of all paintings , Munich 1968
  2. ^ Magdalene M. Moeller: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The street scenes 1913-1915 . Hirmer Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6190-3 , p. 28
  3. ^ MoMA. The Collection: Kirchner - Street, Berlin. Retrieved October 1, 2016
  4. ^ Database on the confiscation inventory of the "Degenerate Art" campaign, Research Center "Degenerate Art", FU Berlin