German Expressionism

The Saint Louis Art Museum is home to one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of German Expressionist paintings. Rediscover a defining movement of modern art through this original study of works by 25 artists who span its famously wide arc.

The painter Hermann Stenner (1891–1914) was one of the outstanding talents of the 20th century. It is impressive to note that he achieved his rapid artistic development and distinct pictorial language during just five years of study and creative work. His remarkably extensive oeuvre is being rediscovered today following his death at an early age during the First World War.  

When Paula Modersohn-Becker’s artist friends examined her extensive estate a few weeks after her death, they were overwhelmed. They only gradually realised that in the painter, who had died so young, they had had an outstanding artist in their midst. Modersohn-Becker was largely unrecognised during her lifetime but is regarded today as one of the pioneers of Expressionism.

Elegant sailing ships, expansive seascapes, crystal-clear expansive views of architecture – with his unique pictorial language and range of subjects Lyonel Feininger became one of the most important artists of Classic Modernism, whose works remain very popular to this day.  

She was not only a talented artist but also a shrewd free thinker and hostess: at the beginning of the twentieth century famous artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Alfred Kubin, Adolf Erbslöh, Erma Bossi, Franz Marc and August Macke assembled in Marianne von Werefkin’s salon in the Schwabing district of Munich.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) is one of the most important artist personalities of the twentieth century; many of his works have become icons of Expressionism. Vacillating between self-doubt and egocentricity, the artist created an incomparably multi-faceted oeuvre with a remarkable instinct for the trends and imbalances of his time.  

Vasily Kandinsky became the pioneer of abstract art; he was a co-founder of the Blauer Reiter, an art theorist and an influential teacher at the Bauhaus. When he abandoned his promising career as a lawyer in favour of art at the age of 30, no one could have guessed that a few years later he would play a decisive role in determining and revolutionising twentieth-century art.  

Emil Nolde was one of the most important exponents of Expressionism, and is considered one of the main precursors of modernism. His virtuoso handling of colour and the incomparable expressiveness of his paintings, watercolours, and Unpainted Pictures astound viewers again and again, and ensure that every exhibition of his work is a great success.