One of the founders of Die Brücke. (the Bridge) in 1905 along with Ernst Ludwig Kirschner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Heckel was intensely interested in printmaking. The artists of the group frequently circulated exhibitions of prints in woodcut, etching, and lithograph; their hope was to strike a prophetic chord and awaken their compatriots to a new, free, passionate age. Joined by Max Pechstein, Otto Müller, and EMil Nolde, the artists of the group exhibited their works in over twenty shows. Their work, all of which was condemned by the Nazis as "Degenerate," is intense, angular, and nervous.

Selected Bibliography: Bruce Davis, German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Prestel, 1989); Elvejhem Museum of Art, The Graphic image: German Expressionist Prints (Madison: Elvejhem Museum of Art, 1983); Reinhold Heller, Brücke: German Expressionist Prints from the Granvil and Marcia Specks Collection (Evanston: Mary and Leight Block gallery, Northwestern Uninversity, 1988).
Prints: Annemarie & Wolf-Dieter Dube, Erich Heckel. Das Graphische Werk. Band 1: Holzschnitte. Band 2: Radierungen und Lithographien. Band III: Werke der Jahre 1963 bis 1968 und Nachtrage (NY: Ernest Rathenau, 1964 & 1974); Galerie Gunther Franke, Erich Heckel: Druckgraphik, 1905-1967 (Munich: The Gallery, 1967), Frankfurter Kunstkabinet, Erich Heckel: Aquarelle, Holzschnitte, Lithographien und Radierungen (Frankfurt am Main,: Frankfurter Kunstkabinet, 1964), Galerie Henning, Erich Heckel: Aquarelle, Holzschnitte, Radierungen, Lithographien (Halle: Galerie Henning, 1949, R.N. Ketterer. Erich Heckel Ausstellung: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Graphik (Campione bei Lugano: Campione d'Italia, 1970), Heinz Kühn, Erich Heckel: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen (München: F. Bruckmann, 1959), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Erich Heckel. Paintings, watercolors, drawings, graphics (Ottowas: 1971), Paul Vogt, Erich Heckel (Düsseldorf: Galerie Wilhelm Grosshennig, 1981), Museum Folkwang. Erich Heckel, 1883-1970. Gemalde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, und Graphik (Essen: Museum Folkwang, 1983).

Junges mädchen / Young Woman (Dube 264 IIIB, Davis-Riffkind 1038, Brücke 14). Original woodcut, 1913, revised 1920. Edition: a few signed impressions pulled in 1913; in 1920 he created a new edition for the delulxe art periodical, Genius, in which "he significantly altered the woodblock, carving it more deeply to prevent the printing of wood stock marks that he characteristically allowed in his earlier work to provide a variety of tonality and texture. The alterations give the print a sharpness and precision lacking in its earlier states as deep, unmodulated black is contrasted directly to pristine, unmarked areas of pure paper." The size of the edition is unknown. Illustrated Kunstblatter der Galerie Nierendorf 30 (devoted to Heckel's drawings and prints), which lists 197 items and illustrates 33. Celeebrating the gift of a proof before the 1913 edition, the National Gallery of Art, Art for the Nation (1991), described this as "an intense and moving image" (p. 292). Image size: 258x170mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Krankes Madchen / Sick Young Girl (Dube 266 b; Davis-Riffkind 1036). Original woodcut, 1913. Edition: 600 unisgned impressions published in Deutsche Graphiker der Gegenwart (Liepzig, 1920), with the printed text verso giving title, artist, and identifying it as an "originalholzschnitt" (original woodcut). There were also 100 hand-printed impressions; so far as I can tell, none of them were signed by the artist. Image size: 190x140mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Liegende / Reclining Woman (Dube 259 II, Davis-Riffkind 1034, Brücke 16, Graphic Image 24). Original color woodcut, 1913, revised 1925. Edition: a few signed impressions pulled in 1913; "in 1925 he created a new edition for the luxurious art periodical, Ganymed. . . . For this, the original jigsawed forms printing in red were replaced, and they thus appear slightly different in configuration from those of the original printing." There was a deluxe edition hand-printed by Heckel and a regular edition of unknown size. Illustrated in The Graphic Image: German Expressionist Prints (Madison WI: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, 1983) and A Breadth of Vision: The Ritz Collecetion (Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992), p. 35. Image size: 181x107mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Zwei am Meer / Couple by the sea (Dube 326, Davis-Riffkind 1052). Original woodcut, 1920. Edition: 100 signed and dated impressions published in the deluxe edition of Paul Westheim's Das Holzschnittbuch (Pottsdam, 1921). A very good dark and evenly printed impression. Illustrated A Breadth of Vision: The Ritz Collecetion (Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992), p. 18; illustrated in German Expressionist Prints from the Collection of Ruth and Jacob Kainen (Wasington DC: NAtional Gallery of Art, 1985), p. 64, where Andrew Robison comments on this print's place in Heckel's stylistic development: "Now the triangular shapes are so dominant, and the hatching on the water's surface so sharp and clearly marshalled in perpendiculars to the background, that the scene appears an arctic lake surrounded by faceted mountains of ice bouncing a blinding light back and forth with the mirror of the water. Heckel's sharply pointed forms could certainly be used to convey pain or melancholy, but here they convey a positive excitement with a world of brilliant light which refracts, suffuses, and organizes the entire environment." One of Heckel's masterpieces! Image size: 178x136mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Die Brüder Karamasow (Dube 253). Original lithograph, 1919. Edition: 25 signed impressions on Japon plus 100 signed impressions on Bütten (of which ours is one) with the drystamp lower left of the important German Expressionist subscription print publishing portfolio, Die Schaffenden. Heckel was one of the founding members of Die Brucke (The Bridge). Image size: 270x215mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

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