1920, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Self-Portrait with Cat -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: In this, one of his many self-portraits, Kirchner, with his beloved cat Boby, eyes the viewer warily. An avid commentator on his own work after World War I — in diaries, correspondence, and even publicly under a pseudonym — Kirchner contributed to the legend of his wartime experience as a soldier. He had suffered a breakdown during the war, and is now known to have partially feigned illness to avoid returning to the front. To recuperate, he eventually left Germany permanently for rural Frauenkirch, near Davos, Switzerland, in 1917. Despite his self-imposed isolation in the mountains, Kirchner kept abreast of developments in Germany, debating details of the history of Brücke and consistently emphasizing his own artistic leadership and autonomy. Thickly painted on a red-and-white checkered cloth — a rare example of a work by Kirchner on an unconventional support — Self-Portrait with Cat retains the more vigorous paint application of the artist’s prewar years, a style he soon abandoned for large, flat planes of color.
1920, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Self-Portrait with Cat -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: In this, one of his many self-portraits, Kirchner, with his beloved cat Boby, eyes the viewer warily. An avid commentator on his own work after World War I — in diaries, correspondence, and even publicly under a pseudonym — Kirchner contributed to the legend of his wartime experience as a soldier. He had suffered a breakdown during the war, and is now known to have partially feigned illness to avoid returning to the front. To recuperate, he eventually left Germany permanently for rural Frauenkirch, near Davos, Switzerland, in 1917. Despite his self-imposed isolation in the mountains, Kirchner kept abreast of developments in Germany, debating details of the history of Brücke and consistently emphasizing his own artistic leadership and autonomy. Thickly painted on a red-and-white checkered cloth — a rare example of a work by Kirchner on an unconventional support — Self-Portrait with Cat retains the more vigorous paint application of the artist’s prewar years, a style he soon abandoned for large, flat planes of color.