Taunuslandschaft. 1916.
Charcoal drawing.
Signed in lower left. Verso with the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written registration number "K Be / Aa 12". On wove paper. 37.4 x 54 cm (14.7 x 21.2 in), the full sheet.

• With its dynamic, energetic strokes, the drawing is rooted in his creative years in Berlin during the First World War.
• In the same year, he also created the closely related paintings "Bahnhof in Königstein" (Gordon 469) and "Eisenbahn im Taunus" (Gordon 470, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich).
• In the winter of 1915/16, the artist spent a few weeks at the Dr. Kohnstamm Sanatorium in Königstein im Taunus and returned in the spring of the same year for another commission to decorate the fountain house.

The present work is documented in the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive, Wichtrach/Bern.

PROVENANCE: Artist's estate (Davos 1938, Kunstmuseum Basel 1946, with the numbered estate stamp on the reverse.
Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Würzburg (with the collector's stamp Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2001-2017).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 266, SHG no. 386 (illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 344, SHG no. 772 (illu.).

The present work was created in the winter of 1915/1916 in Königstein, where Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, traumatized by the war experiences, was treated for his nervous disorder at Dr. Kohnstamm's sanatorium. Between December 1915 and July 1916, Kirchner traveled to the small town in the Taunus Mountains three times, each time for four to eight weeks. "Quietly perceptible, the works from the Taunus period introduce a new stylistic phase in Kirchner's work", wrote Annemarie Dube-Heynig ( quoted from: E. L. Kirchner. Graphik, Munich 1961, p. 62). The work offered here succeeds in visualizing these changes in an exemplary manner. Kirchner captured the houses, trees, clouds and mountains of the surrounding Taunus Mountains in swift, dynamic strokes and depicts the road leading up the mountain as a flat, diagonal bar. The horizon line from the mountains is pushed far upwards. At this time, Kirchner used the motif in drawings, pastels, prints and paintings. In the same year, he also created the painting "Bahnhof in Königstein" (Gordon 469), which is related to our drawing, with a wide road leading up the mountain as in the drawing offered here, and "Eisenbahn im Taunus" (Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich). [CH]

In good condition. Overall slightly browned and slightly creased, irregular in the right margin. Isolated minor handling creases and a few tiny brown stains. The lower outermost margin shows minimal discolorations, presumably from the making. [EH]