Cover of the Vth annual portfolio of the Brücke (E. L. Kirchner), 1910

About the Work

From the very beginning, the Brücke also admitted ‘passive’ members to their circle as a means of funding and disseminating their art. These members included, for example, the print collector Gustav Schiefler (1857–1935) and the art historians Rosa Schapire (1874–1954) and Wilhelm Niemeyer (1874–1960). From 1906 to 1912, they received annual portfolios containing original prints in return for their membership fee. Starting in 1909, the prints were produced by a different artist of the group every year. Another artist designed the respective cover page. The Brücke thus presented itself as an association of artists who worked together while nevertheless retaining their independence. The choice of woodcut as the technique for the cover was a programmatic one. Even Otto Mueller, who hardly ever cut in wood, designed the cover for the Pechstein portfolio in that technique.

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.