SwissArtGallery · Documented identity

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Born : 1884Died : 1976Documented citizenships : Germany

Born in Rottluff, near Chemnitz, in 1884, Karl Schmidt adds the name of his birthplace to his own and becomes known as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. He dies in Berlin in 1976. Enrolled in architecture in Dresden in 1905, he founds the Brücke group that same year with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl and Erich Heckel. He interrupts his studies in April 1907 to devote himself entirely to art.

His stays shape a career marked by several places of work: after four months on the island of Alsen in 1906, he spends the summers of 1907 to 1912 in Dangastermoor and Dangast, on the North Sea coast. The Commeter Gallery in Hamburg hosts his first solo exhibition. In 1941, he is excluded from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts and forbidden to paint. He returns to Berlin in 1946 to take up a professorship at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste; he teaches there from 1947 to 1954. By donating 75 of his works to the State of Berlin, he initiates the Brücke-Museum project, which opens in 1967.

The reception of his work is accompanied early on by landmark publications: Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner compiles an initial monograph, published in 1920, and Rosa Schapire publishes the catalogue raisonné of his prints in 1924. His career thus spans the founding of Brücke, working stays on the Baltic and North Sea coasts, and a practice expanded to include wood sculpture and printmaking. Mobilised in 1915 and stationed in Lithuania and Russia until 1918, he works with wood during this period and produces, among other things, sculptures and woodcuts on religious themes.

This profile brings together identity references for Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.

45 references are documented at Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer, Dobiaschofsky, Kornfeld, Lempertz. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.

Works recorded at auction

Photograph : Lempertz · Enlarge image ↗

Lempertz · Lot 173

Zinnie in Vase

Aquarell und Tusche auf Aquarellbütten

Auction date : 2026-06-06

Published result : 22860 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 20000

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Works recorded at auction

Zinnie in Vase

Blühende Bäume und Gartenhäuschen

Flusslandschaft mit Brücke (Leba)

Blumenvase

Fire lily in a white jug, shell on the left

Fohndorf

Stillleben mit Pinselbecher und Kerzenleuchter (Atelierstillleben)

Weihnachtssterne

Reapers at rest

Fish smokehouse beside the railway track

Coral and snail shells

Stepped path on the steep coast

Burgen am Strand

Astern-Stillleben

Nebelmorgen in der Eifel

Rote Gloxinie

Achilleastengel

Stilleben mit Flasche

Steine und Achilleastengel

Pears

Wegbiegung

Vogelhaus

Stillleben mit Meerschnecke

Stillleben mit Muschel

Ohne Titel (Landschaft mit Büschen und Sonne)

Herbst in Sierksdorf

Farnkraut

Female nude in front of a fireplace

Rosa Päonien

Seerosen

Blumenstilleben

Pears

Philodendron in front of a window

Seashells on a Dark Ground

In Front of a White Wall

Forest clearing in the Taunus

Stranddisteln

Stilleben mit Lupine

Sommermorgensonne

Osterstrauss

Landscape in Ticino.

Still life with a fruit bowl

Town view with church tower

Portrait of a woman

Peasants resting

Sources and references

Do you own a work by this artist?