Umbra Vitae (headpiece, page 1) from Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: The Shadow of Life)
Medium
woodcut from a bound volume with 50 woodcuts (including cover and front and back endpapers) on wove paper
Dimensions
book: 23.8 × 16.5 × 1.2 cm (9 3/8 × 6 1/2 × 1/2 in.)
Classification
Volume
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen
Accession Number
2012.92.41.6
Art Historical Context
**Umbra Vitae (headpiece, page 1)** from *Georg Heym: Umbrae* (Georg Heym: *The Shadow of Life*) a striking woodcut by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, created in 1924. Kirchner, a leading figure in German Expressionism and co-founder of the Die Br group, illustrated this bound volume of visionary poems by the early Expressionist poet Georg Heym, who tragically died in 1912 at age 24. Produced years after World War I amid Kirchner's own struggles with illness and exile in Switzerland, the book reflects the era's raw emotional intensity, blending Heym's dark, apocalyptic themes with Kirchner's bold visua...
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...