Artist's mock-up of Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: Shadow of Life)

1912/1922

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Artist, German, 1880 - 1938

Georg Heym

Author, German, born Poland, 1887 - 1912

Spamersche Buchdruckerei, Leipzig

Printer

Kurt Wolff

Publisher, German, 1887 - 1963

Media Options

Skip thumbnail navigation
Back to thumbnail navigation
This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bound volume with 51 woodcuts (including cover and front and back endpapers) on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Ruth Cole Kainen

  • Dimensions

    book: 21.7 × 14.5 × 1.3 cm (8 9/16 × 5 11/16 × 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    2012.92.40.1-51

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Dube 1980, nos. 611, 759-807, and 1 undesc.

Associated Artworks

See all 51 artworks

Die Irren I (The Mad I) (in-text plate) from mock-up of Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: Shadow of Life)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Heym, Spamersche Buchdruckerei, Leipzig, Kurt Wolff

1912

Die Tänzerin in der Gemme (The Dancer in the Cameo) (in-text plate) from mock-up of Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: Shadow of Life)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Heym, Spamersche Buchdruckerei, Leipzig, Kurt Wolff

1912

Hora Mortis (Hour of Death) (in-text plate) from mock-up of Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: Shadow of Life)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Heym, Spamersche Buchdruckerei, Leipzig, Kurt Wolff

1912

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Walter Kern [1898-1966], Winterthur (Lugt 1567a); Erna Kirchner, Kirchner's wife, acquired from Walter Kern, June 20, 1940. Hans Bolliger, Zurich (?); [1] (Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 21 June 1985, no. 104); (via Wolfgang Wittrock Kunsthandel, Düsseldorf); Ruth Cole Kainen [1922-2009], Washington, DC (Lugt 4739); gift to NGA, 2012.
[1] Derived from correspondence between Ruth Kainen and Bob Rifkind, August 13, 1985, in which the former mentions the "Bollinger" collection in relation to the present object.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2014

  • Modern German Prints and Drawings from the Kainen Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2014.

2024

  • The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2024.

Bibliography

1980

  • Dube, Wolf-Dieter. E.L. Kirchner; das graphische Werke. Munich: 1980, nos. 611, 759-801, and 1 undesc.

You may be interested in

Loading Results