Straßenszene. Um 1914.
Pencil, black and color Chalks.
With the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written registration number "St. 90" on the reverse. On fine wove paper. 20.2 x 15 cm (7.9 x 5.9 in), the full sheet. [CH].

• Berlin by night: a street scene in the dense and dynamic style of the Berlin years, in which Kirchner makes the hustle and bustle of the city at night almost tangible.
• In 1911, the artist moved to Berlin and began to work with impressions gained on the streets.
• The move brought completely new motifs into Kirchner's works, among them prostitutes and elegant pedestrians, streetcars and automobiles, shop windows and neon signs.
• The famous "street scenes" are particularly rare on the international auction market.

PROVENANCE: Artist's estate (Davos 1938, Kunstmuseum Basel 1946, with the numbered estate stamp on the reverse).
Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett Roman Norbert Ketterer, Stuttgart (1954).
Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin.
Wolfgang Wittrock art dealership, Berlin.
Olbricht Collection, Essen/Berlin (acquired in 2007).

LITERATURE: Magdalena M. Moeller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Die Straßenszenen 1913-1915, Munich 1993, p. 177, cat. no. 27 (full-page illu. in color).

"They were made in the years 11-14, during one of the loneliest times of my life, when an agonizing restlessness drove me out again and again, day and night, into the streets crowded with people and cars."
E. L. Kirchner about the street scenes in his diary, 1919, quoted from: Magdalena M. Moeller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Die Straßenszenen 1913-1915, Munich 1993, p. 25.