Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
1884 Rottluff near Chemnitz – 1976 Berlin
Short information about the artist
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff is still one of the most internationally known expressionists to this day. Schmidt-Rottluff went down in art history as a co-founder of the famous artist group “Die Brücke”, to which Max Pechstein and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner belong, and as an important representative of classical modernism.
Kunstwerke im Angebot
Verkaufte Kunstwerke
Videos about the artist
More information about the artist
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff is still one of the most internationally known expressionists to this day. Schmidt-Rottluff went down in art history as a co-founder of the famous artist group “Die Brücke”, to which Max Pechstein and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner belong, and as an important representative of classical modernism.
Quotation
“(…) I know about myself that I have no program, just the inexplicable longing to grasp what I see and feel, and to find the purest expression for it …” (Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, quoted from Brix in: Möller . 1992, pp. 257-258.)
Painting
With two-dimensional, very colourful and expressionistic works, the bridge painters displaced the impressionism that had dominated until then since 1905. The forms were simplified, the colour increased in its intensity and the line became the main vehicle of expression. It was particularly important to Karl Schmidt-Rottluff to express longing and haptic impressions in the purest form without resorting to a ready-made image program. By this purest form Schmidt-Rottluff understood his painting and his expression in it. Only this medium was able to record his expressions for him, which can only be circumscribed in words, but not expressed in the purest form.
Exhibitions and Museum
During his lifetime he was present at numerous international exhibitions, first in Europe, and later also in the USA. Since 1947 he has been teaching at the University of Fine Arts in Charlottenburg in Berlin. He donated his estate to the city of Berlin in 1964. Three years later the “Brücke Museum” was opened, which to this day gives interested visitors an insight into the expressionist world.