Skizzenbuch II. 1901/02.
24 sheets Drawings, clot binding. Most in pencil, some ink brush, wash, watercolor, color chalks and pastel.
Signed and dated "1901" on a label on the wrapper. Some sheets titled (1-4, 6,. 7 and 9+10, 12, 16 and 22), one inscribed "7 Minutenskizze" by the artist. Smooth creme paper. Binding: 13 x 20 cm (5.1 x 7.8 in). Sheet, each: 12 x 19 cm (4,7 x 7,4 in).
Bound, 24 sheets (one of them trimmed) with 31 sketches (one of them probably not by Kirchner, reverse of sheet 5) and one blank page. Themes: Street, at the piano, Angermünde church, farmer, at the window, head studies, windmill, Angermünde, old man, view of Wolitzsee, Uncle Otto, landscape, frowning man, near Pillnitz, woman with headscarf, seated couple, bespectacled head, by lamplight, portrait of father, female nude.
On the inside of the cover with one of the two earliest known signatures of the artist (as in the first sketchbook, still without "L" or "Ludwig").
Full cloth binding by the company August Seyfert, Chemnitz. [CH/AR].
• Only very few isolated drawings from Kirchner's younger years before he studied architecture in Dresden have survived.
• With an extremely rare portrait of the artist's father.
• Like no other early work by the artist, the young E. L. Kirchner's sketchbook sheds a revealing light on his development as a draughtsman and painter.
• Amazing artistic variety: Kirchner used pencil, watercolor, pastel and colored chalks.
• No other of the few surviving sketchbooks has been offered on the international auction market for over 20 years (source: artprice.com).

PROVENANCE: Ulrich Kirchner (1888-1950) and Walter Kirchner (1882-1954), the artist's brothers, Berlin-Grünau.
Hans Wentzel Collection, Stuttgart (acquired from the abov).
Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Würzburg (with the collector's stamp, Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2001-2017).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Gerd Presler, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, die Skizzenbücher. "Ekstase des ersten Sehens". Monographie und Werkverzeichnis, Weingarten 1996, sketchbook 2, p. 196 (with several illus.).
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Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 92, SHG no. 25 (illu.) and pp. 13ff. (illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 280, SHG no. 635 (illu.).
Cf. Roland Scotti (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Das fotografische Werk, Davos 2005, p. 78, cat. no. 45 (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, photo portrait of his father professor Ernst Kirchner, around 1917).

Good overall impression. The binding with signs of wear and soiling, probably mostly by the artist himself, and slightly wavy. The endpapers with small tears, but stable. The sketch leaves slightly irregularly browned and with small creases. One sheet with small losses in the corners. Remnants of detached sketch leaves present. The binding mostly stable, one leaf professionally reinforced.