Expressionism Timeline

In 1905, a group of four German artists led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner formed Die Brücke (the Bridge) in Dresden. The group became one of the two foundational collectives of German Expressionism, seeking to bridge old and new artistic traditions through bold color and distorted forms.

Image source: Die Brücke

Der Sturm, published by Herwarth Walden starting in 1910, became one of the two leading Expressionist journals in Berlin, promoting avant-garde art and literature and helping define the movement for the public.

Image source: Der Sturm

A few years after Die Brücke, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich. The name came from Wassily Kandinsky's painting Der Blaue Reiter of 1903. The group embraced spiritual and abstract approaches to art.

Image source: Der Blaue Reiter

Die Aktion, edited by Franz Pfemfert, first appeared in 1911 and became one of the two leading Expressionist journals published in Berlin alongside Der Sturm, championing literary and political Expressionism.

Image source: Die Aktion

Norris Embry (1921–1981) studied with Oskar Kokoschka in 1947 and during the next 43 years produced a large body of work in the Expressionist tradition, sustaining the movement in late 20th-century America.

From 1950 to 1965, the Expressionist movement was joined by Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, Hassel Smith, Nathan Oliveira, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell, and Roland Peterson, who developed distinct styles considered part of Expressionism.

Béla Bartók was a significant Expressionist composer in his early works of the second decade of the 20th century, beginning with the one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), followed by The Wooden Prince (1917) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1919).

Image source: Bluebeard's Castle

German composer Paul Hindemith created an operatic version of Oskar Kokoschka's playlet Murderer, The Hope of Women, which premiered in 1921, extending Expressionist drama into the realm of opera.

Image source: Paul Hindemith

The ideas of German Expressionism influenced the work of American artist Marsden Hartley, who met Kandinsky in Germany in 1913, helping transmit Expressionist aesthetics across the Atlantic.

Image source: Marsden Hartley

Katherine Sophie Dreier and Marcel Duchamp were likely among the first to attempt to introduce 'modern art' to New York with the founding of the Société Anonyme in 1920, paving the way for American exposure to Expressionism.

Image source: Société Anonyme (art)

William Henry Fox, director of the Brooklyn Museum, continued the pioneering efforts of the Société Anonyme in 1929 by advocating for the promotion of modern, and in particular, Expressionist art in America.

Image source: Brooklyn Museum

It was not until the Munich exhibition 'Entartete Kunst' in 1937 that a drastic shift occurred in the United States: Expressionist works began to be increasingly acquired and exhibited by American museums, presented as an expression of a resistant culture opposed to an authoritarian regime hostile to freedom.

Image source: Degenerate art

In late 1939, at the beginning of World War II, New York City received many European artists, further spreading Expressionist ideas and practices in America during the war years.

Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion at the 1914 Cologne Werkbund Exhibition is one of two specific buildings identified as Expressionist architecture, celebrated for its crystalline forms and utopian vision of glass architecture.

Image source: Bruno Taut

Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany, completed in 1921, is the second building specifically identified as Expressionist architecture, with its sculptural, organic form embodying the movement's architectural ideals.

Image source: Einstein Tower

In his influential book Space, Time and Architecture (1941), architectural critic and historian Sigfried Giedion dismissed Expressionist architecture as merely a part of the development of functionalism, shaping its historical reputation.

In Mexico, in 1953, German émigré Mathias Goeritz published the Arquitectura Emocional ('Emotional Architecture') manifesto, declaring that 'architecture's principal function is emotion'—an Expressionist revival in postwar architecture.

Image source: Mathias Goeritz

Goeritz collaborated with Luis Barragán on the Torres de Satélite (1957–58) in Mexico City, guided by Goeritz's principles of Arquitectura Emocional, realizing Emotional Architecture in monumental form.

Image source: Torres de Satélite