An exceptional talent, master of Expressionist art, co-founder of Die Brücke group. Where Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s work is concerned, superlatives are basic. It is all the more surprising, therefore, that there has been little critical appraisal of one of the most important chapters in the painter’s life and oeuvre. Besides his Expressionist acme, his imposing later-phase work deserves special attention and recognition. In exile in Davos, Kirchner again managed to produce an outstanding cycle of pictures, before committing suicide at the age of fifty-eight. Though continuing to use his inimitable style, he nevertheless invented something entirely new. Nature appears as an intoxicating space in intense colours, where the dignity of the human figure is negotiated in a dynamic aesthetic. The scholarly publication gives readers the complete picture in the context of another Expressionist living in a self-imposed exile during those years: Danish painter J. F. Willumsen (1863–1958). The juxtaposition of Kirchner and Willumsen poses a visually persuasive and entirely new perspective on an intense, colourful and vital vision of painting from the 1910s–1930s.

Eight monumental works by one of Denmark's most esteemed mid-career painters are explored here, primarily via well-chosen details. There are terrifying rallies, moody still lifes, apocalyptic landscapes, haunted interiors and enigmatic figures from the past.