Kirchner’s move to Berlin in 1911 allows his signature style full play and is never more evident than in his Berlin Street Scene (1913-14).  The placement of his prostitutes with their plumed hats and furs shows a mastery of perspective.  The artist has thrust the women and their male partners in a rhythmic march towards the foreground, creating an inescapable tension. The action comes to an abrupt stop with a male subject front and center with his back to the viewer.  This painting was co-acquired in 2006 and Director Renee Price sees it as a work of “pointed social critique,” one that’s central to their mission.

If it’s true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder happened to be Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich henchmen, then the likes of Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kokoschka, and Klee (and that’s just the early 20^th Century artistic giants whose names start with “K”) were in big trouble.  By the time the Nazi campaign to purge the world of modernist art ended, some 20,000 pieces were confiscated, hidden, sold, or destroyed.