White Dancer in a Small Nightclub

White Dancer in a Small Nightclub — Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1914.

Medium: lithograph. Dimensions: Image: 59 x 50 cm (23 1/4 x 19 11/16 in.); Sheet: 65 x 50 cm (25 9/16 x 19 11/16 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was fascinated by the tawdry underworld of cabarets and nightclubs near where he lived in Berlin. He printed this nightclub scene from his largest lithographic stone. A high-kicking dancer is both leered at and ignored by a cadre of cigar-smoking men, one of whom, with his face toward the viewer, is Kirchner himself. The cramped space and smoky atmosphere, emphasized by the artist’s rapid, free marks, undermine the token optimism of the bubbles that surround the stage.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.