What is suppressed eventually rebels: art history, rich in revolution, has seen many shake-ups over the centuries, but hardly any reached the intensity and impact of Expressionism which shook the clanking iron chains of the contemporary and often commercialised art world with such compelling force. This rebellion found its epochal climax where the severity of form in the shape of Wilhelminism and its omnipresent moral obligation was at its most oppressive: in Germany.

• Expressionism – A German epoch with a French name
• Die Brücke as the pioneer of Expressionism
• The Blaue Reiter as the pinnacle of Expressionism
• Characteristic features of Expressionism
• The Expressionist purification of the world in fire and smoke
• Expressionism lives on in the 21st century
• Artists of Expressionism
• Upcoming Auctions - Expressionism
• Our passed Expressionism-Auctions
• Expressionism Prices
• Sell Expressionism - Object evaluation & Consignment

Although the revolution this time was German, the name stems from French: the expression indicates the emotional “expression” of art in contrast to the strict academically regulated naturalistic history painting; at the turn of the century, the entire European avant-garde was considered “expressionist”. The gallerist Herwarth Walden, who was innately dedicated to everything new in art, concretised the term Expressionism when he introduced the members of the artists’ association Der Blaue Reiter as “German Expressionists” at the “First German Autumn salon” in 1913. Whilst the term also temporarily included the French Fauves and Cubists, namely Pablo Picasso, as well as the Italian Futurists, the narrowing to German and a few Austrian artists gathered pace, not least through the book Der Expressionismus, published in 1914, whose author, the influential art critic Paul Fechter, restricted himself entirely to the Brücke and the Blaue Reiter. Both groups of avant-gardes were thereby named which, first and foremost, have given face and identity to Expressionism to this day. Regardless of German nationalisation, however, the important impulses of international painting must not be overlooked: Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Kees van Dongen, James Ensor or Edward Munch were formative role models.

In the 1920s, the smoke of the revolution had gradually cleared, the oppressed artist’s soul had made itself heard, the power of the colours waned, the raging sensual frenzy gradually faded to the sharply observed and precisely modelled New Objectivity. The incoming disillusionment was also a result of the enthusiasm for the war that led the young artists by the dozen to their death or trauma: the followers of the Blaue Reiter, in particular, rose in an exaggerated expectation of salvation, in a need to purify the old world and also to subject art to a cleansing fire, so that the approaching First World War stood for them not as a horror, but as an opportunity. Important painters such as Ernst Barlach, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Lovis Corinth fell into the general war euphoria. Many, such as Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann or Otto Dix, voluntarily signed up to the military, whilst some, such as Franz Marc, Wilhelm Morgner and August Macke, fell on the battlefield, and others, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, returned home traumatised and broken. In a way, the old portent applies also to Expressionism: the revolution eats its children.

The history of Expressionism does not end there though. In fact, it was first with modern art criticism that the unheard-of paradigm shift which accompanied the expressionist groupings was fully explored. Pictures by the Expressionist masters are regularly the subject of acclaimed and contested auctions. Mädchen in Südwester, in which Ernst Ludwig Kirchner charmingly immortalised his muse and future wife Erna Schilling in front of a coastal landscape with a lighthouse, sold for more than 1.5 million euro at Lempertz in December 2016. Further gems of Expressionist painting include Der Jäger by Emil Nolde and Häuser im Schnee, again from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The great themes of Expressionist art, the oversaturated, oppressive city, the longing for a paradisical-idealised life in nature and the desire for a radical renewal of the world, have gained relevance rather than lost – and Lempertz auction house has the necessary expertise to present the artistic treatment of these important motifs appropriately.

1. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)
2. Emil Nolde (1867–1956)
3. Erich Heckel (1883–1970)
4. Max Beckmann (1884–1950)
5. Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945)
6. August Macke (1887–1914)
7. Franz Marc (1880–1916)
8. Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956)
9. Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
10. Egon Schiele (1890–1918)
11. Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980)
12. Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
13. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976)
14. Max Pechstein (1881–1955)
15. Karl Hofer (1878–1955)
16. Conrad Felixmüller (1897–1977)
17. Otto Dix (1891–1969)

• Auction 1212 - Day Sale - Modern Art
• Auction 1211 - Evening Sale - Modern Art and Contemporary Art
• Auction 1201 - Day Sale - Modern Art
• Auction 1200 - Evening Sale - Modern Art and Contemporary Art
• Auction 1188 - Day Sale - Modern Art
• Auction 1187 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
• Auction 1178 - Day Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art

• Auction 1177 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art

A few examples of expressionism prices auctioned in Lempertz auctions:

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