Erich Heckel

Private Collection, Watertown, Massachusetts
Private Collection (sale: Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, 24th May 1997, lot 972)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Frankfurt, Galerie Ludwig Schames, Erich Heckel, 1917, no. 27 (titled Leuchtturm)

Paul Vogt, Erich Heckel, Recklinghausen, 1965, no. 1917/8, verso illustrated
Alexander Rauch, 'Vom Weltkrieg verworfen' in Bruckmanns Pantheon, vol. LVI, 1998, recto and verso illustrated pp. 199-205

recto: The canvas is unlined. There are two nailhead-sized spots of retouching in the head of the figure and an area of retouching of approximately 2.5cm. by 1cm. in the neck of the figure. There is a 3cm. line of retouching in the centre part of the figure and some scattered small spots of retouching along the arm of the figure. There are scattered spots of retouching in the area along the left and top edges, all visible under ultra-violet light. This work is in stable condition. verso: There are several fine horizontal lines and nailhead-sized spots of retouching in the centre and upper part of the composition. There is a 2cm. line of retouching in the upper right quadrant of the work, all visible under ultra-violet light. Colours: recto Overall fairly accurate, although the ocre tones are slightly stronger in the original. verso Overall fairly accurate, although the ocre tones are more red in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In its maturity and immediacy of style, Badende (Siddi) am abendlichen Strand an der Flensburger Förde (Osterholz), marks one of Erich Heckel's most significant periods in his extensive œuvre. Painted in 1913, the present work most probably shows the young dancer Siddi, then called Sidi Reha, Heckel's girlfriend and favourite model at the time, whom he married in 1915. During the first decades of the twentieth century, the cult of the unconstrained nude in nature was keenly followed by the Brücke artists.  

1913 marks a crucial turning point for Erich Heckel, as not only the Brücke group which he had founded with Schmidt-Rottluff, Kirchner and Pechstein in 1905 disbanded that year, but also in his artistic development, as the technical and inspirational areas of his focus constantly evolved. The present work reflects the artist's move away from the heavy impasto technique he was using in 1907 whilst strongly influenced by the work of Van Gogh. In Badende (Siddi) am abendlichen Strand an der Flensburger Förde (Osterholz), Heckel used lighter, thinner paint which is applied to the canvas in rapid, decisive brushstrokes. Together with his fellow Brücke members Kirchner, Pechstein and Schmidt-Rottluff, Heckel travelled to Dangast in 1910, a small fishing-village on Germany's North Sea, Moritzburg and subsequently with Siddi to Osterholz. Attracted by the freedom, wilderness and simplicity of these remote places away from the city, the artist produced works in which the fluidity and expressiveness of the brushstrokes reflect his sense of artistic liberation. Painted on the rocky shores at the Flensburger Förde, the present work is characterised by a dynamic and highly expressive colour palette in which the red, ochre and brown tones stand in sharp contrast to the deep blues and greens. 

Describing Heckel's work at Osterholz, the idyllic Schleswig-Holstein peninsula, Gerhard Wietek remarked in the catalogue of the Heckel exhibition at the Altonare Museum in Hamburg in 1971: 'Heckel's works capture the essence of the undulating rhythm of change with the seasons...the steeply shelving coastline with its ravines overgrown with trees and bushes, and its beaches irregularly dotted with huge boulders.'

'In 1913, however, Heckel was to some extent still feeling his way in his treatment of these novel surroundings, despite the fact that they provided the setting for one of the greatest of all his pre-war paintings, the celebrated Gläserner Tag, also of 1913 (fig. 2). He himself described the fruits of his labour of the first summer at Osterholz in rather modest terms, writing several times between July and September to Walter Kaesbach about his studies and about his attempts to evoke the particular charm of the landscape, "the huge rocks on the foreshore and the cliffs falling steeply away to the beach...". And on another occasion, also to Kaesbach: "The sun has meanwhile grown even yellower, and the foliage browner. Naked forms, brilliant yellow, leap about in the blue-black water, while the rocks, blue and dark-toned, and the limestone cliffs cast along shadows on the shore" ' (Peter Vergo, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Twentieth Century German Painting, London, 1992, p. 129).

Leuchtturm, painted in 1917, is a particularly vivid work from the war years in Flanders, where Heckel was stationed as a paramedic until the end of the war. Due to military considerations, drawing and painting en plein air were prohibited. Thus Heckel's canvases from those years emerged as a substitute for his experiences with nature. The contrast between the artist's beach scenes and the compositions painted in Flanders is expressed by Paul Vogt: 'How different is the effect of the glittering lighthouse or the port entrance in Ostend from 1916, in which sky and sea reflect the horrors of a torn world! When standing in front of such pictures one senses the drama of the years in Flanders and experiences the landscape as an expression of human sentiment' (P. Vogt, op. cit., pp. 56-57, translated from German).