DAVOS.- From 15 February to 3 May 2026, the Kirchner Museum Davos presents the first comprehensive juxtaposition of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Pablo Picasso.

Around 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints from major international museums and private collections open a new perspective on two of the most influential artists of modernism.

The starting point of the exhibition is a remarkable wish expressed by Kirchner in 1933: he dreamed of seeing his works exhibited alongside those of Pablo Picasso.

Building on this idea, the exhibition explores the extra- ordinary creative power of two artists of almost the same age, who never met yet responded to the challenges of their time with radically different artistic paths – and nevertheless come surprisingly close to one another repeatedly in their works.

At the same time, “Kirchner. Picasso” is the first major Picasso exhibition in Eastern Switzerland and an international project of outstanding significance.

SENSATIONAL JUXTAPOSITION

The exhibition takes as its starting point a documented wish expressed by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in 1933: “… that I expect an international exhibition where Picasso and I will hang side by side.” 1 Almost a hundred years later, the exhibition takes up this idea and makes it a reality for the first time.

At its centre is the dialogue between two independent artistic positions that emerged at the same time yet pursued fundamentally different artistic paths, shaping art history like few others.

Over a period of almost four decades, both artists responded to the same historical and social upheavals of modernity – but with fundamentally different aesthetic strategies. The exhibition follows this simultaneity of proximity and difference, revealing how two of the most important artists of the 20th century developed their own answers to a radically changing world.

TWO PATHS INTO MODERNITY

Kirchner and Picasso – born just one year apart – belong to the same generation, yet their artistic biographies unfolded under very different conditions.

Picasso became part of the Parisian avant-garde at an early stage and soon shaped the formal renewal of 20th-century art with Cubism. His works were received with exceptional intensity in Germany and Switzerland even before the First World War. Kirchner, by contrast, developed his art within the artists’ group Brücke, which deliberately turned away from academic traditions in search of new forms of expression for immediacy, authenticity and spontaneity. After moving to Berlin in 1911, the metro- polis itself became his central artistic theme.

The First World War marked a profound rupture. Following his physical and psychological breakdown, Kirchner moved to Davos, where he lived and worked until his death. In his late work he increasingly experimented with abstraction without abandoning figuration – with the declared aim of integrating German-language art into an inter- national modern context.

The exhibition shows how both artists responded to key themes of modernity – urbanisation, acceleration, corporeality and social upheaval.

FOUR DECADES – FOUR CHAPTERS

POSTHUMOUS: A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER BETWEEN TWO OPPOSING MASTERS

“Kirchner. Picasso” is divided into four major thematic sections, each covering a decade between 1900 and 1940 and illuminating the historical and artistic context of the works on view. The presentation follows a chronological-thematic sequence and relies on targeted juxtapositions of works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Pablo Picasso. With Kirchner’s death in 1938, the temporal framework of the exhibition comes to an end.

FIN DE SIÈCLE

The opening section is devoted to the search for new visual languages around 1900. On display is a selection of early works by Pablo Picasso and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that document their departure from academic traditions and their engagement with contemporary currents and milieus such as the circus and variety theatre.

Among the works shown is Pablo Picasso’s Jeanne (1901), Musée national Picasso– Paris. This early work, still shaped by Impressionism, points to his turn towards a psychological intensification of pictorial motifs. With Barcelona at Night (Barcelone la nuit) (1903), Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich, Picasso’s developing handling of space, light and composition can be traced in exemplary fashion.

Juxtaposed to these works are important works from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s early period up to the Brücke artists’ group, such as Two Dancers (Zwei Tänzerinnen) (1910/11), Franz Marc Museum, Kochel am See (Press no. 17). Through selected works, the gallery makes visible both shared starting points and the first differences in the artistic development of the two artists.

Opposed to it stands Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s iconic Two Women on the Street (Zwei Damen auf der Strasse) (1914), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K20, Düsseldorf (Press no. 4). As a counterpoint to metropolitan experience, the retreat into nature comes into view, for example in Kirchner’s Two Bathers (Fehmarn) (Zwei Badende) (1912), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (Press no. 16).

THE ROARING TWENTIES

The third gallery addresses the phase of reorientation after the First World War. A selection of works from the 1920s is presented, in which Pablo Picasso moves between different stylistic approaches and combines classical elements with a more liberated formal language. This is illustrated, among other works, by Mother and Child (Maternité) (1921), Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich, as well as Head of a Woman (1932), Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

After moving to Davos, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner developed his so-called New Style. Works such as Totentanz (Danse Macabre) (1926–28), Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern (Press no. 8), show a clearer formal language, rhythmic linework and a reduced yet intense use of colour.

THREATENED MODERNITY

The final gallery is devoted to the political and cultural developments of the 1930s. The defamation of modern art under National Socialism and the campaign against so called “degenerate art” form the historical backdrop.

Pablo Picasso responded during this period, among other things, with portraits of his partner Dora Maar, such as Woman with a Hat (Frau mit Hut) (1938), Museum Berggruen – Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s late work is represented, among others, by Colour Dance II (Farbentanz II) (1932–34), Sammlung Ulmberg.

References to the reception of Picasso can also be traced in Nude Reclining Woman (Nackte liegende Frau) (1931), Kirchner Museum Davos (Cat. 95) (Press no. 13), a work from a series of figurative depictions from the early 1930s, connected to the Picasso retrospective of 1932 in Zurich.

KIRCHNER AND PICASSO – COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND YET SIMILAR

The exhibition does not aim to simplify stylistic parallels or claim direct influences. Instead, it asks questions about artistic attitude, and about different strategies in dealing with tradition, rupture and renewal.

Kirchner openly admired Picasso and described him as “the most peculiar and best” of his time. At the same time, his own work remained shaped by an existential urgency that differs clearly from Picasso’s often analytical approach. How Picasso perceived Kirchner is unfortunately not documented.

The many outstanding loans and the staging within historical context open a new view of two of the most important artists in art history and make “Kirchner. Picasso” a once-in-a-lifetime experience.


1 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in a letter to Frédéric Bauer, 28 January 1933, in: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The Complete Correspondence, ed. by Hans Delfs, 2010, no. 2784