Kirchner and the Berlin Street

by Deborah Wye

"Between 1913 and 1915, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted a remarkable series of works known as the Berlin Street Scenes. Acute depictions of twentieth-century urban life, these paintings are widely accepted as the high point of Kirchner's work and a milestone in German Expressionism. Kirchner and the Berlin Street is the most extensive consideration of this series in English, focusing on seven paintings and examining the entirety of the artist's creative process - his first explorations of this theme in sketchbooks used out on the street, and his ensuing studio investigations in a major body of prints and drawings. To bring out the complex meanings of the Street Scenes, Deborah Wye, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at The Museum of Modern Art, draws on a range of Kirchner's motifs, including nudes, dancers, and cityscapes."--Jacket.