Kirchner Museum © Davos

Sole attraction for non-sports fans in Davos is the Kirchner Museum, 600m east of the Platz tourist office on Promenade (Tues–Sun: July–Sept & Christmas–Easter 10am–noon & 2–6pm; rest of year 2–6pm; Fr.8; SMP). This impressively airy structure houses a vibrant collection of artworks by the German Expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Born in 1880, Kirchner moved to Berlin in 1911, but after an intensive period of work which produced a host of starkly stylish woodcuts and sketches, his health deteriorated rapidly. He emigrated to Davos in 1917 following a nervous breakdown, and lived in a number of small shacks out in the countryside, where he produced a constant flow of expressive, highly colourful paintings, including the celebrated, luminous Davos im Sommer. In 1936, Kirchner’s work was tagged “degenerate” by the Nazis and, in a deep depression, the artist committed suicide in Davos two years later.