Girl, with Another Rubbing Her Belly

Drypoint allowed Kirchner to create dense, uneven lines by incising the plate with a sharp tool, capturing the spontaneity of a drawn sketch. The reclining figure’s contours are smoother, contrasting with the agitated, wavy strokes defining the standing woman’s dress. The surface retains the grain of the plate, and the image appears deliberately unfinished—emphasizing process over completion, a hallmark of Die Brücke’s aesthetic.

Created in 1910, this print emerged from Kirchner’s Berlin studio, where he and Die Brücke members experimented with printmaking as a vehicle for personal expression. It was likely produced in a small edition, common for artist-led print workshops of the time. While its early ownership is undocumented, it entered institutional collections in the mid-20th century as Expressionism gained scholarly recognition.

In 1910, Kirchner was deepening his exploration of the human figure amid urban life and intimate relationships. Die Brücke artists rejected academic conventions, favoring raw lines and emotional intensity. This print reflects their engagement with non-Western art and modern life’s fragmented rhythms, positioning the body not as idealized form but as a site of lived experience and unmediated presence.

Kirchner’s drypoints, including this work, helped redefine printmaking as a medium for expressive immediacy rather than reproduction. Though lesser known than his paintings, these intimate studies influenced later generations of artists who valued process and emotional honesty over polish. The piece remains a quiet example of how Expressionism transformed everyday gestures into visual language.