In a comprehensive survey exhibition, the Kirchner Museum Davos presents exceptional international loans of works by the Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, spanning his entire career. The show examines the significance of artist-made frames for Kirchner’s paintings.
As decorative borders surrounding and protecting artworks, frames were long regarded as merely marginal, but the advent of modernism prompted a revaluation of their importance as integral components of works of art. Numerous original frames were once part of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painterly oeuvre. To him, the relationship between painted canvases and his often custom-made, intricately designed frames became increasingly central to his artistic practice.
‘I never send unframed paintings to exhibitions; that does not work for my pictures. When I create something, I want it to be as fitting and as good as possible, otherwise I would rather not do it.’
Nearly all of Kirchner’s paintings were originally accompanied by at least one frame, sometimes even multiple ones. Although most of these original frames have been lost, around 150 have survived to this day.
Rediscovered and Reunited offers a comprehensive overview of Kirchner’s approach to pairing his paintings with frames. It showcases the range and evolution of his work, from the simple wooden frames of the artist’s early Brücke period to the ornate frames of his Davos years. The exhibition vividly demonstrates the deep artistic connection between Kirchner’s canvases and their original frames, which he meticulously crafted to amplify the expressiveness of his works.
A central aspect of the exhibition, which features numerous international loans (including three major early works from public collections in the U.S.), is the reunion of original Kirchner frames with the paintings to which they originally belonged. This achievement is the result of extensive research into the surviving original Kirchner frames, a painstaking search for the corresponding canvases, and persistent efforts to finally reunite such pairs after decades of separation.
A wide array of photographs and drawings from the artist’s sketchbooks provides context for the often-eventful history of these frame-painting pairs and highlights the extensive research behind this ambitious exhibition project. An accompanying film offers an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the reconstruction, of the famous Kirchner painting Balcony Scene, which received a new frame, specially crafted for the exhibition based on the historical model.
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A joint exhibition of the Kirchner Museum Davos and the Buchheim Museum der Phantasie in Bernried am Starnberger See, in cooperation with WERNER MURRER RAHMEN.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with scholarly contributions by Katharina Beisiegel, Matthias Gegner, Werner Murrer and Marianne Saal and a list of all known artist’s frames by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The catalogue is published in German and English.
Images
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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 – 1938), Blonde Woman in Red Dress (Portrait of Mrs. Hembus), 1932, oil on canvas in the original frame, 150 x 75 cm, private collection
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Ringer in den Bergen (Sertigdörfli), 1926, HEINRICH GEBERT KULTURSTIFTUNG APPENZELL, Foto: Stephan Bösch.Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mädchen in Südwester, 1912/1920, Privatsammlung Schweiz, Foto: Saša Fuis.
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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 – 1938), Head with Pipe, 1913, oil on canvas, 60 × 51 cm, Brücke Museum, Berlin
