Five Women on the Street

1914

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Associated Names
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Artist, German, 1880 - 1938

Printed with bold, black, angular lines and slashes on white paper, five stylized women stand in a loose row across the width of this vertical woodcut. All five wear long, dark coats or dresses. The leftmost woman wears a turban-like hat, and the others have hats topped with long plumes. Their bodies are narrow and taper to their feet, and all the women appear to stand with hands in pockets except the frontmost, who braces one hand on her hip. Their features are roughly carved with almond shapes or slits for eyes, thickly outlined lips, heavy eyebrows, and some horizontal shading on the cheeks. The all face our left in profile except the leftmost woman, who faces us. Some abstracted forms, including a wheel, fill the right quarter of the composition. The rest of the background is white except for some carving marks that printed black.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut on heavy wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection

  • Dimensions

    plate: 48.5 x 37 cm (19 1/8 x 14 9/16 in.)
    sheet: 52 x 39 cm (20 1/2 x 15 3/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1985.46.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Dube 1967, Vol. (W), no. 240, State ii/ii

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Unidentified private collection, Berlin; (Wolfgang Wittrock, Düsseldorf). (R.M. Light, & Co., Boston); Ruth Kainen, Washington, D.C., purchased February 19, 1976; gift to NGA, 1985.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1986

  • Graphic Survey Show, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., February 1986.

1992

  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992.

1993

  • Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993-1994, no. 112, pl. 93.

2003

  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880-1938, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2003, no. 114, as Five Women on the Street.

2014

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

Bibliography

1967

  • Dube, Annemarie and Wolf-Dieter Dube. E.L. Kirchner; das graphische Werke. Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1967.

1985

  • NGA Kainen Coll. 1985, 14, repro. p.44.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, D.C., 1992: 324, repro.

2003

  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880-1938. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2003: 43, no. 114.

Inscriptions

lower left in graphite: E L Kirchner

Wikidata ID

Q74067502

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