Street, Dresden

1905

An architect’s diploma and then only painting

In 1905 Kirchner returned to Dresden, sat the final diploma examination, received his architecture degree and then turned exclusively to painting.

7 June 1905

Founding of the Brücke group

Four architecture students of the Dresden Technical College — Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff — founded the group Die Brücke (“The Bridge”); 7 June is considered its founding day. Heckel proposed the name and Kirchner became the group’s ideologist: he made the rejection of the materialist worldview, realism, Impressionism and Art Nouveau the basis of its aesthetic.

1906

The Brücke manifesto

In 1906 Kirchner wrote the group’s programme: anyone who directly and without illusion reproduces what he feels the urge to create belongs to the Brücke.

September – October 1906

The first Brücke exhibition: the female nude

In September and October 1906 the group’s first exhibition, devoted to the female nude, was held in the showroom of K. F. M. Seifert and Co. in Dresden.

1911

Moves to Berlin

In October 1911 Kirchner moved to Berlin; new themes entered his painting — life in the big city, its streets and architecture, the human types characteristic of the capital.

1913

The “Brücke Chronicle” and the break-up of the group

In 1913 Kirchner wrote the “Chronicle of the Brücke group,” in which, his comrades felt, he overstated his own role in its creation; a quarrel followed, Kirchner left the Brücke and the group fell apart.