Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (b.1880 d.1938) was a German Expressionist painter and printmaker. He was one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke. He said "the goal of my work has always been to dissolve myself completely into the sensations of the surroundings in order to then integrate this into a coherent painterly form”. He was heavily influenced by African and Polynesian art and this can be seen in his use of simplified forms and non-naturalistic colours.