Lot 37 Dα

As the only impression of the print’s first state, this outstanding work featuring a drawing on its reverse side is an absolute rarity.

With the “Rheinbrücke in Köln”, an extraordinary testament to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s mastery of the printmaking medium is going on the auction block. There is only one impression of this first state of the print, with its clear and light lineation; only five impressions were made from the revised second state, and two of those are to be found in museum collections. The painting created on the basis of this motif is in the possession of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
In 1914 Kirchner stood at the peak of his artistic development. In Berlin, where he had been living since 1911, he was capturing the speed and complexity of urban life with an unsurpassed intensity in his famous street scenes.
In May and July 1914, he briefly stayed in Cologne for the second time to carry out a commissioned work. Two years earlier, he and Erich Heckel had already realised a wall painting for the international art exhibition of the Sonderbund in the exhibition hall Am Aachener Tor. A commission from the Cologne tobacco manufacturer and important art patron Josef Feinhals is what brought him back to the Rhine this time. In connection with the major Werkbund exhibition, Kirchner designed a stand for Feinhals to present his historical collection of artistic tobacco products.
The panorama of the city of Cologne evidently made a deep impression on the artist: these short visits led to three etchings and a lithograph. The lithograph “Rheinbrücke in Köln” is the most impressive of these prints. In an extraordinary composition, the artist has captured the view towards the cathedral from the Hohenzollern Bridge, although the perspective bears a highly subjective stamp. Much like his street scenes from Berlin, this mundane setting has been distilled into a composition of extreme dynamism and formal rigour.
Seen from a substantially elevated vantage point in the middle of the bridge, the walkway irresistibly draws us further into the image while passers-by rush along the straight line formed by it. The path is flanked on either side by the massive arches of the bridge, which meet at the vanishing point. The characteristic towers of the cathedral rise up directly behind this point, although they are largely covered up by the beams and arches of the bridge, which had just been opened in 1911. Modern urban life and technology dominate over centuries of history and tradition; industrially manufactured steel components place the imposing medieval architecture in their shadow. The steam locomotive on the train tracks next to the walkway underscores Kirchner’s intense experience of modern life’s dominance.
The artist was so fascinated by the composition found here that he developed it further that same year in his painting “Rheinbrücke” (Gordon 387; Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, see comp. ill.). The intensity of the colours in the painted version make it captivating, but it remains “far from the suggestive power and expressive force of the lithograph” (Magdalena M. Moeller, in: Meisterwerke der Druckgraphik, op.cit., p. 168).
Our sheet shows the first version of the lithograph and is the only known impression of this state of the print. The entire vibrancy and spontaneity of the sketches on which it is based are still manifest in it. In a second state (Gercken 689 II; Dube 256 II, see comp. ill.), Kirchner has revised the motif: the beams and arches of the bridge are depicted in black and invest the structure with a menacing dominance. The contours of the cathedral’s towers are also reinforced, and a dark tone is used to bring out the walkway: this causes the architectonic forms to merge more strongly into a single entity while the pedestrians, who are still readily identifiable in our version, optically recede into the background.
It is not just the state of the print that makes this sheet unique: there are also figure sketches on its reverse side. Here, in his characteristic and spontaneous style of drawing, Kirchner has devoted his attention to the theme of bathers in a tub – a motif that is to be found in numerous variations in his oeuvre. With strokes rushing across the paper, he has captured the two crouching nudes in a fleeting scene.
Together, the lithograph and the drawing of this unique sheet testify to the virtuosity with which Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was able to express himself in graphic media.