Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff suggested the name 'Die Brücke' (The Bridge) for the revolutionary Dresden collective he co-founded in 1905. He favored dramatic simplifications of form and intensely contrasting color planes, developing an elemental graphic style deeply informed by African and Oceanic sculpture.

During World War I on the Eastern Front, Schmidt-Rottluff created a renowned cycle of religious woodcuts conveying profound spiritual anguish. Defying Nazi persecution and a total ban on painting, he continued to work covertly, later becoming a revered professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and co-founding the Brücke Museum.