THE GOLDEN AGE

The main part of Kirchner's production was developed during the period which we have named the Golden Age and which includes the postcards published between 1900-1907, eventhough the majority of them were actually published before 1904.

During this period Kirchner moved to Paris and the change of his lifestyle is very visible in his drawings. Infact, many of his postcards of this period have the word Paris written underneath his signature, and with close observation of the post dates, the periods of production with his signature without Paris (before 1902) and the one with Paris (from 1902 on) are easily noticeable.

In the Golden Age period there are many other sets of postcards that seem to be by Kirchner also if they are not signed by him. Some of these sets can unmistakably be attributed to Kirchner and others maybe less so. It is not always easy, and sometimes with a little doubt, to be able to attribute unsigned postcards to Kirchner, but which are definitely in his style: during his lifetime there were already other illustrators with similar styles - it is sufficient to consider some of Carl Jozsa's postcards - not to mention evident imitators. Our attributions are based not only on reviews of the time, but above all, on a thorough analysis of the artist's style and of course on our long experience in this field. So we have individualized the sets without signatures but which can be considered, with reasonable certainty, as Kirchner's work, and which we have included in our checklist.

Finally, in the list regarding the Golden Age we have also included some sets that we consider must be the work of Kirchner, even if they have other signatures. We refer here to the only known set signed by Nini Hager - perhaps this was his wife's real name? - and two series signed by Raschka. We would like to remark that the attribution of these three sets to Kirchner is based only on the analysis of the Kirchner s style and the lettering used for signatures and other writings, as of now we have no other proof.

We have catalogued the Kirchner s postcards produced in the golden age according the following sets.

viennese series

D - Signed Raphael Kirchner