German Expressionism

The artist group Brücke was founded in 1905 in Dresden by four young, rebellious architecture students. With their collective way of living and working, they radically broke with the prevailing strict moral norms and aesthetic ideals of the German Empire. Brücke’s art marks the beginning of German Expressionism, which would eventually be recognised as Germany’s most important contribution to international modernism.

In “German Expressionism: The Artist Group Brücke and the Beginnings of Modernism”, you will encounter paintings, drawings, watercolours, woodcuts, and sculptures by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, the four founders of Brücke, as well as by Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Otto Mueller, members who joined later.

For the first time, the Nordic audience is now given the opportunity for a deeper encounter with the artist group Brücke. – Iris Müller-Westermann, the exhibition’s curator and senior curator at Moderna Museet