Bucheinband (cover) from mock-up of Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: Shadow of Life)
1912/1922
Medium
woodcut from a bound volume with 51 woodcuts (including cover and front and back endpapers)
Dimensions
book: 21.7 × 14.5 × 1.3 cm (8 9/16 × 5 11/16 × 1/2 in.)
Classification
Volume
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen
Accession Number
2012.92.40.1
Art Historical Context
Step into the raw emotional world of German Expressionism with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's *Bucheinband (cover)* from the mock-up of Heym's *Umbra Vitae* (Shadow Life), created around 1912 and finalized by 1922. Kirchner, a founding member of revolutionary Die Brücke group, the turbulent spirit of pre-World War I Germany into this striking woodcut cover. It adorns a bound volume containing 51 woodcuts, front and back endpapers, forming an artist's book that vividly interprets Heym's haunting poetry of urban shadows, mortality, and existential dread—a perfect match for Kirchner's intense vision. W...
About the Artist
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner · 1880–1938
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born on May 6, 1880, in Aschaffenburg, Germany, to parents Ernst and Maria Kirchner, part of a family of Prussian descent that frequently relocated due to his father's career as a chemical technician. After early schooling in various towns, he studied architecture at the Königliche Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Dresden from 1901 to 1905, taking courses i...