Die Brucke Biography

Die Brücke (‘The Bridge’) was a German Expressionist group founded in Dresden in 1905 by four architecture students: Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. The group sought an art that was direct and emotionally powerful, working with vivid colour, sharply simplified forms and energetic drawing.

Its members explored painting, sculpture and printmaking, especially woodcuts, and often worked together in studios and outdoors. The group moved its centre of activity to Berlin in 1911 and dissolved in 1913. In addition to its most familiar members, several international artists belonged to the group for shorter periods.

Artists and participants

Founding members (1905)

• Fritz Bleyl (1880–1966)
• Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
• Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)

Later members

• Max Pechstein (1881–1955)
• Emil Nolde (1867–1956)
• Otto Mueller (1874–1930)
• Cuno Amiet (1868–1961)
• Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865–1931)
• Kees van Dongen (1877–1968)
• Franz Nölken (1884–1918)
• Bohumil Kubišta (1884–1918)