DAVOS.- With luminous contrasts, vibrating fields of colour and radical expressive power, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner created a visual language that continues to captivate audiences and scientists alike. This summer, the Kirchner Museum Davos dedicates an extraordinary exhibition to the medium of colour: “A Rush of Colour” traces the journey of colour from Kirchner’s canvas to the laboratory – from pigment to its impact on the retina.

No sooner has one colour spectacle faded than the next arrives in Davos. Following the historic public success of “Kirchner. Picasso”, the Kirchner Museum Davos now turns its attention to what makes Kirchner’s work truly distinctive: colour. From summer onwards, this exploration of colour also takes to the streets, appearing as a sea of flags along Davos’s Promenade and Talstrasse – the very landscapes that inspired Kirchner’s unique world of colour.

When the Studio Becomes a Laboratory

For Kirchner, colour was far more than a compositional tool. It became energy within the image, a vehicle for emotion, tension, physicality and perception. With “A Rush of Colour”, the Kirchner Museum Davos breaks new ground. Rarely do art and science meet as directly and accessibly as they do in this exhibition. Developed in collaboration with the Carl Bosch Museum Heidelberg, the exhibition creates an experience that moves between studio and laboratory, painting and experiment, seeing and understanding.

Kirchner the Genius – and His Colour Code

“A Rush of Colour” makes colour tangible as an artistic force, a physical phenomenon and a sensory experience. “This exhibition is intended to be a genuine eye-opener – not only to the colour genius Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who mastered colour like few others. The recently concluded exhibition on Kirchner and Picasso demonstrated this impressively. Now we are taking the next step: we want to decode Kirchner’s colour code – both sensually and scientifically,” explains Katharina Beisiegel. In an age of constant visual stimulation, this celebration of colour offers a fresh perspective on Kirchner’s work and reveals how colour shapes images, alters perception and evokes emotion.





Colour – The Key to Understanding Kirchner

A visit to the museum becomes a spectacle of colour. The exhibition brings together paintings from different periods of Kirchner’s career, tracing his development from early expressive contrasts through the vibrant palette of his first years in Davos to the almost abstract colour compositions of his late work. Sketchbooks, historical paint tubes and pigment samples provide insights into his experimental artistic practice.

The exhibition also highlights Kirchner’s intensive engagement with the colour theories of his time. In doing so, “A Rush of Colour” spans the spectrum from artistic intuition and scientific discovery to contemporary questions of colour perception.

For the Researchers in All of Us: Seeing, Testing and Understanding Colour

A particular highlight is the interactive exhibition section developed in collaboration with the Carl Bosch Museum Heidelberg. Light phenomena, experiments and multimedia installations reveal how colour is created, transformed and perceived.

In this way, “A Rush of Colour” opens up Kirchner’s work to a broad audience – art enthusiasts, families, children and school groups alike.

“Kirchner did not use colour simply to depict reality; he used it to create sensation,” says Katharina Beisiegel, Director of the Kirchner Museum Davos. “That is precisely where ‘A Rush of Colour’ begins. The exhibition explores why colour in Kirchner’s work affects us so immediately and combines this artistic power with experiments on perception and the science of colour. The result is an experience that goes far beyond a traditional museum visit.”

“Flying Colours” – with a Touch of Kirchner

A private initiative by one of Davos’s long-standing local personalities, Thomas Spielmann conceived the idea of a sea of colours that animate Davos’s Promenade and Talstrasse. One hundred carefully selected shades – all derived from Kirchner’s explorations of colour – flutter from street-banner flags. In collaboration with the Kirchner Museum Davos, to which he remains closely connected as a former foundation board member and tourism professional, Spielmann has brought the idea to life.

The project is called “Flying Colours” (“Heitere Fahne” in German) and will itself become a visual attraction in Davos.