The German Expressionist painter and printmaker Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born in 1880 and took his own life in 1938, when the Nazis removed 638 of his works from museums on grounds of degeneracy. As a young man in Dresden he was inspired by Van Gogh, Klimt, and the far-off arts of Japan and Africa. Later, in Berlin, Kirchner learned from artistic peers Paul Klee and Franz Marc. In Davos his reputation blossomed. The Neue’s comprehensive exhibit presents the epochs of Kirchner’s creative life, each associated with the cities that inspired him—Dresden, Berlin, Davos—and argues for the importance of his revolutionary approaches to both color and form. —C.J.F.