Sailing Boats off Fehmarn by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Art work details

Original Title :

Segelboote bei Fehmarn

Year of production :

1914

Artist:

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Medium :

Woodcut

Materials:

Paper (wove), Ink

Dimensions :

height: 41.8 cms; width: 39.5 cms

Credit Line :

Purchased from Robin Garton with grant-aid support from the Artfund, V&A Purchase Fund and supported by the City of Leicester Museums Trust

Catalogue References:

Dube 243, second state of three

Associated Groups :

Die Brücke, Berliner Secession

Tags:

Woodcut, Kirchner

This magnificent woodcut from 1914 shows Kirchner’s friend Gerda Schilling with other figures seated in a boat with great black sails, as it moves past the distant shoreline of Fehmarn. The island in the Baltic had provided Kirchner with a complete alternative to city life, and he had regularly holidayed there from 1908 onward.

Kirchner shows his mastery of the woodcut medium, choosing thick Japanese wove paper to produce this proof, made before the main edition. He produces a taut composition with glittering colour contrasts.