Artists of Brücke: Themes in German Expressionist Prints

The Brücke group, formed in 1905 in Dresden by four revolutionary architectural students including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel, strove to achieve a new synthesis between art and life, bringing meaning back to what they considered the superficial bourgeois existence of German life under Kaiser Wilhelm II. They organized exhibitions and publicized their own work by issuing annual portfolios of prints. Printmaking, and the woodcut in particular, became one of their most important modes of expression. This site presents more than 110 prints arranged into thematic groupings that highlight the issues and motifs central to this seminal movement in the history of modern prints. This site was a unique opportunity to explore how interactivity can enhance the exhibition of art. Visitors can tour the eight thematic galleries consisting of more than 50 comparative groupings of art with interpretive text and narrated quotations. Every image in the exhibition links to a larger version with more specific information about the work. Access to a map provides context as to where these artists worked, the sites they depicted, plus biographical information on the artists which includes narrated passages from their writings. In the Prints section, viewers can select or “curate” their own comparative groupings, and personalize their experience by sorting the entire collection according to theme, artist, or medium.