One of four founding members of the Die Brücke (The Bridge) movement in early twentieth-century Germany, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff created this self-portrait using a medium that particularly resonated with the German graphic tradition. This turn toward fifteenth- and sixteenth-century German prints was a central initiative for Die Brücke artists: they believed the future of art could only be achieved by bridging the past and present. However, this high-contrast, angular self-portrait is decidedly in the contemporary Expressionist style.