Couple Taking a Stroll, 1907

About the Work

This summery scene of a leisurely walk in four colours was printed from only two blocks in two colours, entirely without the aid of outlines to contain the forms. To this end, Kirchner began by gouging out the figure of the woman, the sun spots and the man’s hat, and printed this block in blue. The cut-out areas appear in the white of the paper. In the second block, he cut out only the two strollers; then he printed this block in orange on the same sheet. By printing over blue with orange, he obtained the green of nature.

About the Acquisition

From 1900 onwards, the Frankfurt chemist and industrialist Carl Hagemann (1867‒1940) assembled one of the most important private collections of modern art. It included numerous paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, especially by members of the artist group “Die Brücke”. After Carl Hagemann died in an accident during the Second World War, the then Städel director Ernst Holzinger arranged for Hagemann’s heirs to evacuate his collection with the museum’s collection. In gratitude, the family donated almost all of the works on paper to the Städel Museum in 1948. Further donations and permanent loans as well as purchases of paintings and watercolours from the Hagemann estate helped to compensate for the losses the museum had suffered in 1937 as part of the Nazi’s “Degenerate Art” campaign. Today, the Hagemann Collection forms the core of the Städel museum’s Expressionist collection.