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On Japan paper. One of 7 known prints by the artist. Signed lower right and inscribed ‘Handdruck’ lower left.
Earlier catalogues raisonnés: Schiefler H 505. There the description by Kirchner and Schiefler:
‘The quite large figures of two men facing each other in full figure: the one standing on the right (from the side, to the left) puts the other’s (from the side, to the right) r. hand around his neck on his shoulder. Hand around the neck on the shoulder. In the background mountains.’
Further copies in the following collections: Los Angeles, UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum; Frankfurt Städel Museum; Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Künste; Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung.
Probably the largest woodcut ever created by Kirchner. Kirchner met his friends Albert Müller, painter, and Hermann Scherer, sculptor and painter, in Basel in 1923. They both soon came to Davos and worked together with him, becoming his best friends and his most important pupils with a high degree of independence. However, much to Kirchner’s grief, both died after just a few years, Albert Müller on 14 December 1926 and Hermann Scherer on 13 May 1927, one of the great disappointments in the life of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who had pinned such high hopes on them as successors to his work. The importance he attached to the two friends is expressed not only in this very large-format woodcut, but also in the almost life-size painting and the equally large painted wooden sculpture of the same composition that were created at the same time.
As is usually the case with Kirchner, the figures depicted extend from the lower to the upper edge of the picture, but here for once they are not overlapped by them. The human figure was the essential thing for him. Above all, he wanted to be a figure painter. Hence the tendency towards generalised titles. Neither in the original title nor in the description he wrote together with Gustav Schiefler do the names of his friends appear, even though they were so important to him. His art was intended to be of general significance, not an episode.
Cf. the painting ‘The Friends (Albert Müller and Hermann Scherer)’, 1924/1925, Gordon 0763, private collection, and the sculpture ‘The Friends (Albert Müller and Hermann Scherer)’ Henze 1924/08, Kunstmuseum Basel, as well as several drawings.
