Nude Sitting on Orange Cloth

The models sitting for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner were usually life companions or close friends, as is the case here as well: Doris Grosse, nicknamed Dodo, a modiste by profession who lived with Kirchner in Dresden from 1908 to 1911. She had a curvaceous body and luxuriant black hair, as can be seen in Sitzender Akt auf orangem Tuch (Nude Sitting on Orange Cloth). Her sweeping hat creations were thematized by Kirchner in many different paintings and drawings. His works also give information convincingly about the artist’s home furnishings, such as the iron coal stove on which ceramic items, likely self-made, were perched. Kirchner’s painting and drawing style is characterized by a quick, restless hand. Intense shades of color, including orange, red, and blue, were daringly applied next to each other, with the flesh tones of the nude herself depicted by bright paints in a body-emphasizing way. Kirchner clearly refrains from following an academic ideal of beauty, instead creating a color environment that is detached from the example of nature.