Der Sterbende Faun (The Dying Faun) (headpiece, page 35) from Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae (Georg Heym: The Shadow of Life)

Painter and graphic artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in 1880 in Aschaffenberg, Germany. He studied architecture at the Dresden Technische Hochschule (Technical High School), but during his time there decided to devote himself to fine art rather than architecture. By 1905, Kirchner, along with fellow artist friends Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, founded Die Brücke (“The Bridge”), an artistic group that sought to “bridge” traditional and classical modes of art making and the avant-garde. Beyond this group, Kirchner found inspiration in the number of post-impressionist exhibitions that were held in Dresden, where he was exposed to the work of such artists as Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch—both of whom he would cite as inspirational to the development of his own practice—as well as exhibitions on art from Africa and Oceania.

Dresden, Germany