Karl Schmidt-Rotluff was born on 1 December 1884 in Rottluff near Chemnitz. With artist friends Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner he founded the famous artist group “Brücke”, which was disbanded in 1913. He served as a pioneer in the First World War in Russia and Lithuania from 1915 to 1918, and shortly after the end of the war, he married Emy Frisch. 1937 was the beginning of a bleak period for Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Hundreds of his works were confiscated in museums, some were destroyed and the painter himself received a paining ban in 1941. He reacted by retiring into his own world, characterised by an extensive collection of ethnological exhibits, mostly from Africa and Oceania which, being fascinated with that which was foreign, Schmidt-Rottluff had collected over his lifetime. Schmidt-Rottluff survived the Second World War and in the post-war years was able to build on earlier successes. He participated in the first documenta in Kassel and taught as professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste; he was also a member of the revived Deutscher Künstlerverbund as second CEO. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff died in Berlin on 10 August 1976, only a few months after his wife Emy.