Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Following the death of Dr. Luzius Spengler on 12 February, Kirchner and Helene Spengler fall out, and this important friendship ends.

A periodical, "Das Kunstblatt", edited by Paul Westheim, does a special Kirchner issue.

In June and July, Gustav Schiefler and his wife visit Davos for several weeks, to work on the catalogue of the print graphics. Hermann Scherer visits. In October Kirchner has to move out of "The Larches" because the owner needs the house for his own use. He rents an old farmhouse on the Wildboden side of the valley.

The Amselfluh
1923
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, Switzerland

Kirchner's painting Junkerboden is awarded the Prize of the Republic in the spring exhibition at the Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin.

Under his pseudonym Louis de Marsalle, Kirchner publishes an essay on his own sculptures in the periodical Cicerone.

In December he begins his first return visit to Germany, via Zurich and Basle; He visits Frankfurt am Main and Chemnitz.

Kirchner is back in Germany staying in Dresden with the Grohmanns. There is talk of Kirchner's being given a professorship at the Dresden Academy of Art. It in fact goes to Otto Dix.

In February he travels on to Berlin, where he stays with his brother Walter. He meets Schmidt-Rottluff and Max Liebermann. Kirchner returns to Davos in March.

He makes another short trip to Germany in June, with Albert Müller, to see the International Exhibition in Dresden.

A retrospective of Kirchner's first ten Davos years is presented at the Davos Art Association.

In December his friend Albert Müller dies suddenly.

Prompted by the reunion with Schmidt-Rottluff in Berlin. Kirchner paints A Group of Artists, showing Die Brücke artists at the time of the group's dissolution in 1913.

Kirchner's style moves toward more abstraction.

Self
1928
Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection
Chevy Chase, MD, US

Kirchner's painting Junkerboden is awarded the Prize of the Republic in the spring exhibition at the Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin.

Under his pseudonym Louis de Marsalle, Kirchner publishes an essay on his own sculptures in the periodical Cicerone.

In December he begins his first return visit to Germany, via Zurich and Basle; He visits Frankfurt am Main and Chemnitz.

Kirchner makes his fourth journey to Germany since the end of the first world war and visits Frankfurt and Berlin.

The second volume of Gustav Schiefler's catalogue of Kirchner's graphic work is published.

Kirshner prepares a major retrospective to be held in Berne the following year.

He is alarmed at political developments in Germany, where the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seems likely to lead to their being in power.

Solo Kirshner exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Berne. Kirchner contributes one last essay under the Louis de Marsalle pseudonym to the catalogue. Kirchner is satisfied with the show, the catalogue and the response in Switzerland and Germany.

Various museum curators see it, and numerous collectors buy pictures. The Berne Museum of Art acquires Sunday in the Alps and Scene at the Well.

The Nazi seizure of power in Germany on 30 January begins to affect the arts, and on 16 May Kirchner receives a letter from the Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin suggesting he withdraw and present himself for election again.

Kirchner's dealer Manfred Schames emigrates to Palestine.

Kirchner visits Berne to see an exhibition of Klee at the Kunsthalle. Paints Berne city scenes.

Kirchner abandons his Cubist-inspired abstract manner.

Kirchner works on plans to paint the interior of the village church in Frauenkirch, which is never started. He carves a relief for a new school building in Frauenkirch.

The German Artists' Association is dissolved. Political reprisals against modern art are increasing in Germany. Kirchner's health deteriorates. He complains of intestinal trouble and loss of weight, and probably begins to take morphine-based medicines.

Kirchner has a solo exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Art.

In June the Nazi regime in Germany pronounces modern art to be degenerate and begins removing works from museums. About 650 paintings, sculptures, drawings and graphics by Kirchner are confiscated and sold off abroad or destroyed.

The Munich exhibition of Degenerate Art travels throughout Germany.

The Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin demands that Kirchner resign his membership. He replies: "If my name is so troublesome to the Academy, strike it out" — and his name is excluded.

Kirchner tries to make his legal position in Switzerland more secure by taking Swiss citizenship, both for himself and for Erna.

The Anschluss of the 13 March—the German annexation of Austria—prompts Kirchner to fear that German troops might turn up on his doorstep. Davos is only thirty kilometres from the Swiss-German border.

Kirchner begins destroying the plates of his woodcuts and some of his carved sculptures. Newspapers report that he has taken to shooting at his pictures.

His 58th birthday on 6 May passes without congratulations. On 10 May he goes to Davos town hall to have the banns read, intending to marry his long-standing partner Erna and so assure her legal status after his death, but on 12 June he cancels them.

Erna realises that Kirchner's crisis is deepening and seeks the help of friends, but it is too late. On 15 June, shortly before ten in the morning, Kirchner shoots himself through the heart with a pistol.

On 18 June he is buried in the woodland cemetery at Davos.

Erna Schilling is granted the legal right to use the name of Kirchner and lives in the Wildboden house until her own death on 2 October 1945.