From 15 February to 3 May 2026, the Kirchner Museum Davos presents
an exhibition on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Around 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings and graphic works offer a new perspective on two of the most influential artists of the modern era.
The starting point for the exhibition is a remarkable wish expressed by Kirchner.
In 1933, he said he hoped that his works would one day be displayed alongside those of Pablo Picasso (‘…I hope for an international exhibition where Picasso and I will hang side by side’).
Based on this idea, the exhibition highlights the creative power of these two contemporaries who never met, who responded to the challenges of their time in different artistic ways, but who nevertheless repeatedly approached each other in surprising ways in their work.
Over almost four decades, both artists responded to the same historical and social upheavals of modernity – albeit with fundamentally different aesthetic strategies.
The exhibition closely follows this simultaneity of proximity and difference and reveals how two of the most important artists of the 20th century each developed their own responses to a world that was radically changing.