German Expressionism in Art and Film

German Expressionism in Art and Film opens at the Portland Art Museum on February 6, 2027, and runs through July 11. It's a big one: about 70 prints and paintings alongside 50 film clips and stills, all from the German Expressionist movement. The two are shown together for the first time, which makes a lot of sense once you see them side by side—the jagged lines and distorted perspectives of the paintings look a lot like the stark shadows and skewed sets of the films.

On the art side, you'll find satirical prints by Otto Dix and Käthe Kollwitz, and paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emile Nolde, and Max Pechstein. The film side brings in some of the most famous names from the era, including F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). The show is organized into thematic sections that trace German culture between 1918 and 1939, so you can follow the movement through its different phases rather than just seeing a random collection of works.

There's a specific window of time this exhibition covers: the years between the end of World War I and the Nazi Party's political and cultural takeover of Germany in the 1930s. It was a period of intense social and political upheaval, and that tension is exactly what the Expressionists were reacting to. The whole thing was organized by the Institut für Kulturaustausch and coordinated for the museum by Lloyd DeWitt, Ph.D., the Richard and Janet Geary Curator of European & American Art Pre-1930.

You'll find the exhibition in Galleries 101, 110, 212, and 213 at the Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave. Admission is included with general admission, so if you're already planning a museum day, this is just one more thing to add to the list. It runs from February 6 through July 11, 2027.