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Two nude women, painted in vibrant coral peach and bubblegum pink, stand under a red umbrella in a landscape in this stylized, vertical painting. The scene is painted with areas of flat or streaked color with visible brushstrokes throughout. The women and umbrella take up most of the picture. The woman on our left stands facing our right almost in profile. Her skin is vivid peach. Slashes of red outline her breasts, groin, and legs. Her hair, eyes, and eyebrows are painted with black strokes. She stands on one leg and stretches the other in front of her to overlap the far foot of the other woman. The first woman hooks her arm through the elbow of the other, who stands facing us to our right. This second woman has vivid pink skin also outlined in red. Her face is a darker shade of pink, resembling a mask, and her eyes are parallel strokes of black and blue. Her left arm, on our right, hangs by her side, and she holds the umbrella with the other arm. She either wears a hat or her hair is painted with alternating bands of black, red, and brown, and there is a red flower or bow to one side. Black lines in the candy-red umbrella suggest a rib on the underside and the handle. Cobalt-blue branches of a tree above the women has blue and green leaves. The landscape beyond them is made up of bands of acid green, yellow, saturated blue, and cool green.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Two Girls under an Umbrella, 1910

East Building, Mezzanine - Gallery 217A

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 95.3 x 80.3 cm (37 1/2 x 31 5/8 in.)

framed: 119.7 x 104.8 x 7 cm (47 1/8 x 41 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman

Accession Number

1992.58.1

Artists / Makers

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (painter) German, 1880 - 1938

Image Use

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Inscription

across top reverse: Zwei Mädchen / [...] / E L Kirchner; stamped upper left reverse: NACHLASS E.L.KIRCHNER / Dre/Bf15 [Kirchner Estate seal; "Dre" = Dresden]

Provenance

The artist [1880-1938]; his estate, Basel; (Galerie Roman Norbert Ketterer, Campione bei Lugano, Switzerland). Arnold A. [1916-2014] and Joan R. [1919-2019] Saltzman, Sands Point, New York; gift (partial and promised) 1992 to NGA; gift completed 2020.

Associated Names

Ketterer, Roman Norbert
Saltzman, Arnold, Mr. and Mrs.

Exhibition History

1964: E. L. Kirchner, Galerie Roman Norbert Ketterer, Lugano, Switzerland, 1964, 8-9, no. 1, color repro.

1966: Le fauvisme français et les débuts de l'Expressionisme allemand, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1966, 268, 281, no. 205, repro.

1989: From Kandinsky to Dix, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, New York, 1989-1990 (information from label on back of painting).

1992: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no cat.

2001: German Expressionist Paintings from the Saltzman Family Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, brochure, fig. 3.

Bibliography

1964: E. L. Kirchner. Exh. cat. Galerie Roman Norbert Ketterer, Lugano, Switzerland, 1964: 8-9, no. 1, color repro.

1966: Le fauvisme français et les débuts de l'Expressionisme allemand. Exh. cat. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1966: 268, 281, no. 205, repro.

1968: Gordon, Donald E. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968: 286, no. 140, repro.