3815 - Erich Heckel, “The Walk”

Erich Heckel, “The Walk” Father talking to his son, set against a landscape under a bright sun, catalogue raisonné Dube 317, woodcut, signed and dated in lead below the image on the right: “Erich Heckel (19)20", slight signs of ageing, framed with a passe-partout and behind glass, image dimensions approx. 46 x 32 cm. Artist’s biography: a leading German painter and printmaker (1883, Döbeln - 1970, Radolfzell/Lake Constance); studied architecture at Dresden Technical University from 1904, withdrew from his studies in early 1906; worked (until 1907) in a Dresden architectural practice whilst turning to painting and printmaking as a self-taught artist; in 1905, together with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Fritz Bleyl, he founded the ‘Brücke’ artists’ group in Dresden; from 1907 to 1910, he undertook study visits with Schmidt-Rottluff to Dangast; in 1909, he travelled to Italy and shared a studio with Kirchner in Dresden; 1909-11: Summer stays by the ‘Brücke’ artists at the Moritzburg Ponds; 1911: moved to Berlin, where, in 1912, he became friends with Lyonel Feininger, Franz Marc and August Macke; 1913: The ‘Brücke’ group disbanded and first solo exhibition at Fritz Gurlitt’s gallery in Berlin; in 1913, he discovered the little village of Osterholz on the Flensburg Fjord for himself and spent the summer and autumn months there until 1943, 1914: stayed with Heinrich Nauen in Dilborn and took part in the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne; 1915-18: served as a medic during the war, 1918: Member of the ‘Arbeitsrat für Kunst’ and member of the Nationalgalerie’s acquisitions committee; from 1920: regular study trips throughout Germany, the south of France, Italy, England and the Alps; 1931: retrospective at the Kunsthütte in Chemnitz, from 1937 banned from exhibiting and ostracised as ‘degenerate’; during the book and art burning on 20 March 1939 in the courtyard of the Berlin fire station, 1,004 paintings as well as 3,825 watercolours and prints by Erich Heckel were destroyed, 1941-43: Stayed in Carinthia; 1944: his studio in Berlin was destroyed by a bombing raid, and he moved to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance, 1949-55: Professor at the Karlsruhe Academy; contributed to numerous exhibitions, including participation in documenta 1 in Kassel in 1955; member of the Reich Association of Visual Artists of Germany and the German Artists’ Association in Weimar; Source: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Dressler and the internet.