
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Street, Berlin. 1913
Curator, Starr Figura: The Brücke artists moved to Berlin by 1911 to sell their art to the much more dynamic art world. But what happened was the very tight group cohesion that was key to the development of their style, began to unravel once they got to Berlin. The Brücke group actually disbanded in 1913, just a few months before this work would have been made.
Director, Glenn Lowry: But for German Expressionism in general, Berlin had a galvanizing effect.
Starr Figura: From this point on, Expressionism flourishes, and the artists who we met in some of the earlier sections [of the exhibition] moved to Berlin. And all of these different individuals influence and encourage each other, in this approach to making art that involves an emphasis on emotion, on stripping away the comfortable facade and trying to expose certain psychological and emotional truths.