Erich Heckel

Erich Heckel (1883-1970), German painter and printmaker, a prominent Expressionist. Heckel is significant not only for the quality of his own work but also for his effective administration of Die Brücke and its exhibitions in the years preceding World War I.

Heckel studied architecture in Dresden, where he co-founded the Die Brücke group in 1905. Together with his colleagues, he moved to Berlin in 1911. After military service during World War I, he returned to Berlin, where he continued to work until World War II, despite persecution by the Nazis, who regarded his avant-garde style as degenerate. In 1944 he settled in the Lake Constance area, where he remained until his death.

Heckel used vivid, unnaturalistic colours and distorted the human form under the influence of non-Western art, as can be seen in his woodcut of a Standing Child (1910; Brücke-Museum, Berlin). Although his style became more conservative later in his career, it always showed the influence of his Die Brücke period. He is best known for his paintings of nude figures and landscapes.