Erich Heckel

Erich Heckel studied architecture and was self-taught. In 1905 he was one of the founders of “Die Brücke” and soon one of the most important German Expressionists. His greatest strengths were landscape paintings and prints (woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings) with an idealized idea of primitive life. He was active for almost six decades. Over time his pictures became more melancholic and spiritualized in the sense of magic realism. Although in 1934 he signed the call of cultural workers in support of Adolf Hitler, he was banned from exhibiting after 1937. More than 700 of his works were removed as “Degenerated Art” from German museums. In the burning of paintings on 20 March 1939 in Berlin, the Nazis destroyed thousands of paintings, watercolors, and prints.

After World War 2, Heckel was appointed professor in Karlsruhe, and in 1955 he took part in the “documenta 1” exhibition in Kassel. In his last years, he gave most of his works to the Brücke Museum in Berlin. On both his 70th and 80th birthdays, major retrospectives were held, as his works were now shown in all the great museums of the world. In 1974 his painting Sleeping Pechstein for the German Post stamp series “German Expressionism” and in 1994 his painting Landscape near Dresden were selected for another series “German paintings of the 20th century”. He was married to dancer Milda Frieda Georgi (1891-1982), also known as „Siddi Riha“.

Several preliminary studies and sketches do exist of his 1928 entry Badende am Main (Bathers at the River Main). The work, which shows a scene near Würzburg, is shown in the exhibition catalog of German entries in 1928. A version from Whitsunday 1927 (oil on canvas, 96 x 120 cm) was later destroyed. Motifs of the painting In the Berlin Stadium can also be found in a series of woodcuts of the same name.