Dancing Couple, ca. 1914

About the Work

Kirchner studied the body in motion incessantly throughout his career: in the streets, in variety shows, cabaret and the circus. Dancers held a special appeal for him. Here, however, he reduced the bodies of the dancing figures depicted in pastel to rather rectilinear, angular, almost geometric forms, thus endowing them with an unexpectedly stiff and mechanical quality. Yet already just his restless – virtually nervous – handling of the drawing utensils lend the work an exceptionally dynamic effect.

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.