Gallery established in 1880 by Fritz Gurlitt. Promoted contemporary German artists, and was the first to publicly exhibit French Impressionism in Berlin, beginning in 1883. Gurlitt died in 1893 and his son Wolfgang took over the gallery business in 1912 and added Expressionist art to the program, organizing the first and only Brücke group exhibition in Berlin that same year, and giving Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel their first solo shows in this city in 1913; gave Otto Mueller and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff exhibitions in 1914. Wolfgang also led the gallery to engage in major printmaking activity. By 1915 was representing Max Pechstein and served as primary publisher of his prints from then through 1923, when artist and dealer split. Also published almost all of Lovis Corinth's prints after the artist's break with Paul Cassirer in 1913. In 1918, following Cassirer's example, Gurlitt founded his own printing press, Gurlitt-Presse, which issued portfolios and illustrated books by numerous artists, including many by Pechstein and Corinth as well as Oskar Kokoschka and lesser-known Expressionists such as Willi Geiger, Willy Jaeckel, Richard Janthur, and Jakob Steinhardt. From 1919 to 1923 published four almanacs with original prints, the last two titled Das graphische Jahr (The graphic year). In 1920, under the aegis of art historian Karl Schwarz, added an imprint for Jewish art and culture, which published prints by Steinhardt and Ludwig Meidner, among others. Exhibition activity diminished due to financial difficulties after 1926, and in 1931 the publishing business was dissolved. The gallery was destroyed in a bomb raid in 1943.

Selected Bibliography

Gropp, Birgit. "Studien zur Kunsthandlung Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin 1880–1943." PhD diss., Freie Universität, Berlin, 2000.