© Great Works of Western Art
1880 Born at Aschaffenburg.
1901 Kirchner’s parents do not support his plans to become a painter and he enrolls in the Königliche Technische Hochschule in Dresden to study architecture but also undertakes clandestine studies in painting.
1903 Kirchner interrupts his studies to spend a term in Munich.
1905 Qualifies as an engineer. Takes up painting full time. In June Kirchner founds Die Brücke with three other architecture students – Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
1906 Sets up a studio in a former butcher’s shop in Dresden. Meets Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein who both join the group. First Die Brücke show in Dresden.
1908 Members of Die Brücke, including Kirchner visit Berlin and see an exhibition of paintings by Matisse at Galerie Cassirer.
1910 Paintings by Brücke artists are exhibited at one of Dresden’s most prestigious galleries – Galerie Arnold.
1911 Kirchner follows other members of the group who relocate to Berlin, joining Max Pechstein who has been there since 1908.
1913 Die Brücke dissolves partly because of friction between Kirchner and the other members.
1914 Kirchner is conscripted into the army.
1915 Suffers a complete nervous breakdown and receives a provisional discharge.
1917 Still suffering from depression Kirchner moves to live in Frauenkirch near Davos in Switzerland. His style gradually changes and he produces more landscapes.
1922 Collaborates with a weaver to produce tapestries.
1923 An exhibition of his work is mounted at the Kunsthalle in Basel.
1925–9 Makes several trips to Germany where he gradually gains recognition.
1937 Kirchner’s work is included in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition mounted by the Nazis. Hundreds of his paintings and other work in German museums are confiscated and many destroyed.
1938 Commits suicide in Frauenkirch.
1906 Girl Under a Japanese Umbrella, Düsseldorf, Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen
1908 Street, Dresden, New York, MOMA
1909 Bathers at Moritzburg, London, Tate
1910 Self Portrait with Model , Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle
1910 Marzella , Stockholm, Moderna Museet
1911 Semi-nude Woman with Hat, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum
1912 Figures Walking into the Sea , Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie
1913 Street, Berlin, New York, MOMA
1913 Five Women in the Street, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum
1915 Self-Portrait as Soldier, Oberlin College, Ohio
1915 Market Place with Red Tower, Essen, Folkwang Museum
1915 The Drinker (Self Portrait), Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
1919 Winter Landscape in Moonlight, Detroit, Institute of Arts
1922 The Visit, Washington DC , National Gallery of Art
1923 The Mountains at Klosters, Vienna, Belvedere
1926 A Group of Artists, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum
