Nude drawing “After the Bath” (1920) by Max Pechstein, mixed media on laid paper

Max Pechstein is considered today, as he was then, one of the most important representatives of German Expressionism. In the spring of 1906, he joined the artists' group "Die Brücke" (The Bridge), founded the previous year by Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, and Bleyl. In addition to his paintings, his graphic work comprised over 850 woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings. What Tahiti was to Paul Gauguin, the Baltic coast was to Max Pechstein: a paradise where he found peace and, above all, great inspiration. From 1909 onward, he traveled several times to Nidden on the Curonian Spit, where Lovis Corinth had worked as a young art student more than a quarter of a century earlier.