“Unique worldwide”: Kirchner meets Picasso

The idea had been swirling around in her head for several years – however, it wasn't so easy to put into practice.

"My paintings should hang next to Picasso's," Ernst Ludwig Kirchner wrote confidently. What was needed – almost a hundred years later – to fulfill this wish?
"It is extremely difficult to obtain works by Pablo Picasso for an exhibition. We traveled extensively and visited the lenders personally, including major European museums as well as private collections. It took a great deal of persuasion and time. We began planning over three years ago and collaborated with the LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster, where the exhibition was already very successful at its first venue."

Was there a specific occasion for this exhibition?
"I've been carrying the idea around with me for at least ten years. In 2015, I curated a Picasso retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada and shortly afterward visited the Kirchner Museum in Davos and its then-director, Thorsten Sadowsky." There was an exhibition of Kirchner's late work on display at the time – his connection to Picasso immediately caught my eye. Of course, I'm not the first to notice this: the parallels between Kirchner and Picasso have been known for some time. However, we are the first project to present the paintings of both artists in a comprehensive comparison. This is unique worldwide."

How were the one hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints selected for the exhibition?
"It was important to me to tell the story of the two artists. Both were revolutionary in their time and created their own worlds. Picasso wanted to reinvent seeing and thus founded Cubism. Kirchner, one of the most important representatives of Expressionism, was concerned with making inner feelings visible in his paintings. Although their styles differ greatly, their themes are similar: both were shaped by the First World War and the rise of the National Socialists, who defamed both Kirchner's and Picasso's works as 'degenerate art.'" The changing understanding of gender roles also preoccupied her, as did her longing for nature and her interest in subcultures such as vaudeville and theater."

Which works are you particularly proud to be showing in Davos?
"We are presenting a fantastic portrait of Fernande Olivier, Picasso's first partner – a masterpiece of Cubism. As a counterpart, there is one of Kirchner's street scenes, a special loan from the K20 Museum in Düsseldorf. A painting from Picasso's Blue Period from the Bührle Collection in Zurich, as well as 'Maternité' from the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, were among many other paintings that traveled to Davos. My personal favorite, however, is a little-known still life by Picasso from the Solothurn Art Museum: Kirchner once saw this painting with the table and strawberries in an exhibition and wrote about it in his diary."

Did Picasso actually know Kirchner's works?
"We don't know; we haven't found any evidence of that. Unlike Kirchner, who wrote extensively and even penned art reviews of his exhibitions under the pseudonym Louis de Marsalle, Picasso rarely commented on his own work or the art of others. However, he must have been familiar with Expressionism. Picasso was prominently featured at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne around 1912 – as was the Brücke artists' group, to which Kirchner belonged."