Erich Heckel
Erich Heckel (1883-1970) is one of the most important painters and graphic artists of German Expressionism. The self-taught artist was a co-founder of the artists' association "Die Brücke" in Dresden and its organizer. After developing Expressionism in the form of the "Brücke style" (around 1909/10) together with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Max Pechstein, he moved to Berlin in 1911. With his paintings and prints, especially woodcuts, he shaped the avant-garde before the First World War.
During the First World War, Erich Heckel served as a volunteer medic in Flanders, mostly in Ostend. Here he met James Ensor, among others. As he was responsible for the return transportation of wounded soldiers, he was able to use his free time to paint. In contrast to Max Beckmann, whom he met during these years, Erich Heckel used the destroyed Flemish landscape as a symbol of the all-destroying war. These paintings were exhibited in Berlin during the First World War and were very popular. After the end of the war, Erich Heckel - like his fellow members of Brücke, the Blaue Reiter and Emil Nolde - had risen to become Germany's most important living artist. He used his position to place works by his colleagues in the Berlin National Gallery and to travel.
The Expressionist initially welcomed Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but his mood quickly changed when he was placed on the list of "degenerate artists" in 1937 and his paintings were banned from public collections. Heckel spent the Second World War mainly in Berlin. In 1944, his studio and the works he had stored there were destroyed in a bombing raid, and the following year some of the paintings he had stored there were burned in the Neustaßfurt mine. Towards the end of the war, the painter found refuge with a friend in Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance. In the post-war period, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe (1949-1955) and took part in documenta 1 in Kassel. The painter lived in seclusion in Hemmenhofen from his retirement in 1955 until the end of his life in 1970. During the 1960s, the first catalogs of his prints and paintings were published.