Kirchner Museum Davos
The Kirchner Museum Davos offers visitors an extraordinary opportunity to experience works of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in the very place they were created. Davos and
its environs inspired him to produce a large number of major works. The collection now comprises over 1,500 of Kirchner’s paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and textile works, and 160
sketchbooks.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany in 1880. After studying architecture in Dresden he founded the artistic group Brücke with his friends Fritz
Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. In 1911 Kirchner moved to Berlin, and in the following years his expressive work led to the first high point of his career. In 1913 the group of
“Brücke” artists disbanded. Physically and mentally scarred by his confrontation with the city and his experience of military service, Kirchner sought to regain his health in sanatoriums, and,
finally, in 1917, in Davos. Firstly on the Stafelalp, later in the house “In den Lärhen” and finally, “Auf dem Wildboden”, he tirelessly gave expression to a unique, multi-faceted of work. The
German National Socialist regime forbade any public display of Kirchner’s paintings. In 1937 they were withdrawn from museums and defamed, most notably by their inclusion in the exhibition
series, “Degenerate Art” (Entartete Kunst). This defamation of his character and his work catapulted Kirchner into a deep depression and, in 1938, suicide seemed to him to be the only
solution. Website
Annual report 2019