Berlin Street Scene
Two streetwalkers and a knot of stiff men on a crowded Berlin pavement — Kirchner's jagged image of the pre-war metropolis.
Berlin
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
Berlin Street Scene — at a glance
- Artist
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
- Year
- 1913–1914
- Movement
- German Expressionism (Die Brücke)
- Place
- The West End of Berlin (Potsdamer Platz / Kurfürstendamm area)
- Viewpoint
- A distilled image of the quarter — not one corner; the streets were destroyed in WWII and rebuilt
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 121 × 95 cm
- Now at
- Neue Galerie New York
Overview
Berlin Street Scene is one of about eleven ‘street pictures’ (Straßenbilder) Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted between 1913 and 1915, the high point of German Expressionism. Two elegantly dressed cocottes (prostitutes) in large hats stand at the front of a jostling pavement crowd of dark-suited men; a tram or shopfront glows behind; the whole scene is tilted, spiky and lit in acid green, pink and black. It is oil on canvas, about 121 by 95 cm, and it hangs in the Neue Galerie New York.
This version was restituted to the heirs of the Jewish collector Alfred Hess in 2006 after a disputed sale, and then acquired by the Neue Galerie.
Where was Berlin Street Scene painted?
Scholarship Kirchner and the Brücke artists moved from Dresden to Berlin in 1911. The street pictures are set in the fashionable shopping and entertainment district of Berlin's West End — the area of Potsdamer Platz, Leipziger Straße, Friedrichstraße and the Kurfürstendamm — where the streetwalkers worked the pavements among the crowds. Kirchner did not record a single identifiable corner; the pictures are a distilled image of that quarter, which was largely destroyed in the Second World War and wholly rebuilt, so the specific streets no longer exist as painted.
What is in the painting?
Two women in tight, feathered hats and dark coats stand in the immediate foreground, faces mask-like and made up. Behind and around them, a wedge of men in black hats and coats presses forward, all sharp angles; a glowing shop window or vehicle behind. The pavement tilts up steeply; the colours are hard — poison green, pink, black — and every form is drawn with jagged, hatched strokes.
Look closely
The two cocottes
Elegantly dressed prostitutes in feathered hats stand at the very front, faces mask-like and made up.
The wedge of men
Dark-suited men press forward in a nervous, angular wedge behind the women.
The tilted pavement
The ground rakes up steeply towards the picture plane, catching the viewer in the crowd.
The acid colour
Poison green, pink and black, laid in jagged hatched strokes.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A steeply tilted pavement, wedge-shaped crowd and elongated figures, in clashing acid colour and jagged strokes.
Scholarship Kirchner pushes the two women to the very front, rakes the pavement up towards the picture plane, and squeezes the crowd into a nervous wedge behind them, so the viewer is caught in the press. The angular drawing, harsh colour and mask faces express the alienation and charged sexuality of the big city.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
The modern metropolis as unease
The series is read as an image of the pre-1914 German city — anonymous crowds, commodified sex, nervous energy, isolation within the mass. The cocottes, at once glamorous and hard, stand for the modern street itself.
History & provenance
The painting belonged to the Jewish collector Alfred Hess; after a contested wartime-era sale it was in the Brücke Museum, Berlin, and in 2006 it was restituted to Hess's heirs and sold, entering the Neue Galerie New York.
Sources
- Neue Galerie New York — collection entry for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ‘Berlin Street Scene’ (1913–14)
- Reporting on the 2006 restitution to the heirs of Alfred Hess
Frequently asked
Where is Berlin Street Scene set?
In the fashionable West End shopping and entertainment district of Berlin — the area around Potsdamer Platz, Leipziger Straße and the Kurfürstendamm — where streetwalkers worked the pavements among the crowds around 1913.
Can you find the exact street?
No. Kirchner distilled the quarter rather than recording one corner, and the West End streets were largely destroyed in the Second World War and wholly rebuilt.
Who are the two women in front?
Cocottes — fashionable prostitutes — in feathered hats, standing at the front of a crowd of stiff, dark-suited men. They stand for the modern commercial street.
Why does it look so distorted?
Kirchner tilts the pavement up, elongates the figures, uses clashing acid colours and jagged strokes to express the alienation, tension and charged sexuality of the big city.
Where is the painting now?
In the Neue Galerie New York, after being restituted to the heirs of the collector Alfred Hess in 2006.
