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ONLINECOLLECTION

Nude Models at the Studio, 1912

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Leopold Museum,
Vienna
recto: Oil on canvas, verso: Oil on canvas
80.7×70.7 cm

Artists

  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

    (Aschaffenburg 1880‒1938 Davos Frauenkirch )

Currently on display at EG
What looks like sketched out spontaneously appears in fact to have been carefully planned and composed: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) revealingly stages the bodies of skimpily dressed or nude female models, edgy, fragmentally faceted, with tapering angular shapes, at his Berlin place of work in his 1912 painting Nude Models at the Studio. Leaning, sitting, and standing, four female figures of staggered heights direct the eye into the depths of the interior with stovepipe, folding screen, mirror, and exotic sitting furniture. In clearly delineated color fields—red, blue, white, ocher, green—developed into carriers of meaning with flat, strong parallel brushstrokes, the nervously shimmering depiction of the scene conveys an impression of hectic big city life in the Berlin of the early 1920s. The effect is heightened by the markedly frayed and jagged, hatching-like contours. These are typical of the early phase of this co-founder of the Dresden artist group Die Brücke and exponent of German Expressionism.

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Object data

Artist/author
  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Title
Nude Models at the Studio
Alternative title
Verso: Circus Scene
Date
1912
Art movement
Expressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
recto: Oil on canvas, verso: Oil on canvas
Dimensions
80.7×70.7 cm
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 197
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Deutscher Expressionismus. Die Sammlungen Braglia und Johenning, hrsg. von Hans-Peter Wipplinger/Ivan Ristić, Köln 2019 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 15.11.2019-20.04.2020).
  • Wally Neuzil. Ihr Leben mit Egon Schiele, hrsg. von Diethard Leopold/Stephan Pumberger u.a., Wien 2015 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 27.02.2015-01.06.2015).
  • Farbenrausch. Meisterwerke des deutschen Expressionismus, hrsg. von Tayfun Belgin/Otto Letze, Wien 2015 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 9.10.2015-11.01.2016).
  • Körper, Gesicht, Seele. Frauenbilder vom 16. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert, hrsg. von Elisabeth Leopold, Wien 2006 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 09.06.2006-02.10.2006).
  • Deutsche Expressionisten. Mit Meisterwerken aus der Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold/Michael Fuhr, Wien 2006 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 28.09.2006-10.01.2007).
  • Donald E. Gordon: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Mit einem kritischen Katalog sämtlicher Gemälde, München 1968.
Catalogue raisonne
  • Gordon 1968: 286
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Nachlass Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Davos (1938-1946)
Galerie Roman Ketterer, Campione, Schweiz (ab 1953);
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (nach 1968); (1)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (seit 1994)

  1. Donald E. Gordon, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner : mit einem kritischen Katalog sämtlicher Gemälde, München 1968, S. 314, Nr. 286

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