Our new main exhibition, which will be on display from October, is dedicated to the works of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's so-called "New Style" - a creative phase that the artist developed from the mid-1920s and applied until the mid-1930s. Although he could have continued his masterful early style - with the "Street Scenes" and "Bathing Scenes" created in Fehmarn and Berlin - Kirchner consciously opted for a radical new beginning. His path led to a form of abstraction that remained true to the subject matter, but rendered it in a reduced, simplified and stylized manner.
By 1925, having long since settled in Davos, Kirchner had studied the alpine landscape and life in the mountains in all its facets and captured them artistically. It was during this period that the decisive change in his painting took place: the color surfaces became calmer and more homogeneous, framed by intertwined, concave and convex curved lines. This resulted in broad, rounded forms whose strong color contrasts lent expression to a painting of monumental effect.
The exhibition will unfold over two floors and trace the characteristic features, developments and peculiarities of this new style using selected paintings and works on paper - with the aim of giving the works of this creative phase their rightful place in the artist's oeuvre.
