Four architecture students in Dresden, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Fritz Bleyl, founded an artists' community they called Die Brücke, 'The Bridge', to carry art toward an unfettered future. Working communally, they revived the woodcut and painted with raw, jagged color.

The founding act of German Expressionism: the group style forged in their shared Dresden studio defined the movement's first decade.

Artists involved