In his own words, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner described what he wanted to depict in his street scenes:
“How people arrange themselves in crowds and move in lines”, “the feeling that hangs over a city …”
In front of a hairdresser’s salon, figures in movement create diagonal lines criss-crossing the canvas. In the background, the latest trends are presented in the window’s garish light.
In 1925 and 1926, Kirchner took a longer trip through Germany. Visiting large cities again, such as Dresden and Berlin – both places where he had lived – he was deeply impressed by such big city scenes as this and others. Eight years previously, he had withdrawn from urban life, moving to Davos to live in seclusion in the Swiss Alps and recover from the horrors of the First World War. Over ten years before he left for Switzerland, he had been one of the founder members of the Brücke, the famous expressionist artists’ group. Now, as Kirchner journeyed across Germany, he constantly captured big city life in sketches – scenes later turned into paintings in his Davos studio. Curator Birgit Dalbajewa explains what Kirchner was looking for in these works:
“At that time, he hoped to develop a simpler and clearer style of painting with different tonal relations – he was also interested in Picasso – and wanted to paint something more universal which could be connected through colour tones and individual surfaces.”
The result was also appreciated in Dresden. In 1926, the city bought this painting for the State Picture Gallery. That same year, it was also shown in major international art exhibitions – and so it was undoubtedly a success.
Yet Kirchner also saw his trip to Germany as reconnecting him with the art world and perhaps even leading to a professorship at an art college, though that remained a vain hope. He noted:
“I am looking for a homeland and not finding it. I am merely a guest.”
A sentiment which could also come from the lonely man walking out of the picture at the bottom right.
Further Media
“Degenerate Art”
In 1937, the Nazi regime staged their notorious “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich, pillorying and vilifying works from avant-garde movements at odds with what was termed “German art”. Though less well known, the Nazi regime’s first defamatory exhibitions were held as early as 1933, the year they came to power. These exhibitions were titled, for example, “Chamber of Horrors” or “Art that did not issue from our soul”. One of these early defamatory exhibitions was also called “Degenerate Art” and held in Dresden, in the Town Hall’s atrium. Over 200 works defamed as “decadent art” were presented, all from public collections – and to fuel public outrage over the alleged misuse of taxpayers’ money, they were all shown with details of their purchase prices. The paintings also included Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street Scene in Front of the Hairdresser’s. After visiting the exhibition, Adolf Hitler called for it to be shown in “very many German cities”, a call promptly implemented. The Dresden exhibition also served as the model for the “Degenerate Art” show in Munich in 1937.
That same year, the Nazis launched a major campaign of confiscations from public museums. The Paintings Gallery lost 54 pictures, some from its own holdings and some on loan from the Friends’ Association and the city of Dresden.
The Nazi regime then set about trying to “utilise” the confiscated paintings, selling some abroad to obtain foreign currencies. Kirchner’s Street Scene in Front of the Hairdresser’s, for example, was confiscated from the Paintings Gallery in 1937 and taken to a storage facility near Berlin for art works to be “utilised”. In 1939, the painting was purchased by Karl Buchholz, one of four art dealers authorised to sell works abroad. He sent Kirchner’s painting to his New York branch to be sold. It then changed hands a number of times. Ultimately, it could be acquired for the Albertinum in 2016.
- Material & Technique
- Oil on Canvas
- Museum
- Galerie Neue Meister
- Dating
- 1926
- Inventory number
- Inv.-Nr. 2016/01