7036 - Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig Two Girls at Their Dressing Table Colored chalks on sturdy vellum. Circa 1909. Approx. 32.4 x 25.5 cm (irregular margins). On the reverse, the estate stamp (Lugt 1570 b), inscribed by hand in black ink with a pen: “FS Dre/Bi 25.” A magnificent color drawing, likely created around the time of the Dresden Brücke exhibition in 1909. With confident, dynamic strokes, Kirchner juxtaposes the primary colors—yellow, blue, and red—as well as green, and outlines in swift strokes two young women with bare torsos at a washstand as they perform their morning ablutions. Two identical windows indicate the setting in the bathroom and simultaneously serve as a compositional counterpart to the two young women, who are nearly identical in facial features, clothing, and posture. Kirchner’s aim here is not the precise reproduction of what he saw, but rather the immediate capture of movement and the fleeting moment, as he experimented with in those years, particularly in his “Quarter-Hour Nudes.” In addition to the dynamic contours and the contrasting flatness created by the broad application of colored chalk, Kirchner lightens the composition in the center in a distinctive way with a floral pattern of short, bold accents in red and yellow, creating a cheerfuland cheerful atmosphere unfolds, in which the influence of the French painter Matisse on the young Kirchner is suddenly evident. Kirchner’s drawing has nothing sketch-like or preparatory about it—even if some elements are merely hinted at due to the brevity of the session—but rather it should be understood as an independent artistic expression of the moment. Provenance: Fischer Kunsthandel & Editionen, Berlin In a private collection in Berlin ever since Exhibition: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels, Fischer Kunsthandel & Editionen, Berlin 2015, with color illustration (unpaginated) - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.