Erich Heckel Quotes

Erich Heckel was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group Die Brücke which existed 1905-1913. Wikipedia  

✵ 31. July 1883 – 27. January 1970
Erich Heckel photo
Erich Heckel: 8   quotes 0   likes

Famous Erich Heckel Quotes

“The first encounter with Otto Mueller's paintings was in Berlin, at the showing of the 'Rejects of the Berlin Secession'. which took place at the Galerie Macht in the spring of 1910. And we met him personally the very same day in his studio on Mommsenstrasse. This meeting was significant for all of us and occurred at a fruitful moment; and, as a matter of course, he belonged to Die Brücke community from then on.”

a later recall of Heckel; as quoted in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 93

“We saw your [ Cuno Amiet's ] work with feelings of admiration and enthusiasm... Our group [ Die Brücke ] would be exceedingly glad to find in you a comrade in arms and a champion of its cause.”

Quote of Heckel, in a letter of 1 September 1906, to the Swiss artist Amiet; as cited by Günter Krüger, in Die Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke und die Schweiz; as quoted in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; by Museum Associates, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 70
Amiet's radically simplified art-style obviously attracted the younger artists of Die Brücke

“He [ Otto Mueller ] himself omitted certain things in his pictures that his contemporaries deemed to be of importance, in order to capture the essence.... with the greatest possible simplicity.”

In a letter to Emmy Mueller, 1953; as quoted in Otto Mueller: A Stand-Alone Modernist, Dieter W. Posselt

“What we [Brücke-artists] had to remove ourselves from [the German bourgeois mores] was clear; where we were heading was certainly less clear.”

original German: Wovon wir weg mussten, war uns klar. Wohin wir kommen würden, stand allerdings weniger fest
Quote of Heckel in: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: ein Künstlerleben in Selbstzeugnissen, Andreas Gabelmann; Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany 2010; as cited in Claire Louise Albiez https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564 (incl. translation), Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus; submitted to the Division of Humanities New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, May 2013, p. 24

“I finished my first woodcut in Dresden in 1905 after the Xylographic art, cutting out of the hard boxwood the clean sketches with the slate pencil. Then followed the rounded iron, to arrive at the woodcut more freely through the simply ripped out sketch on the log (alder, lime tree, poplar), which would be utilized from here on out. Then finally came a short cobbler knife, and without a pré-sketch, the hand cuts freely into the wood a woodcut, just like it would work on paper with the pen.”

Heckel later summarized in this way his woodcut developments, mainly developed during his years in Die Brücke
Source: Brücke' Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Druckgraphik, Magdalena M. Moeller; Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1992, p. 21; as quoted by Louise Albiez https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564Claire (incl. translation), Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus; submitted to the Division of Humanities New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, May, 2013 p.12

“How glad I was to paint that for the soldiers it is very beautiful, how much respect and even love for art there is in human beings, in spite of everything, and who would have thought that my style, which seemed so modern and incomprehensible to critics and public at rotten exhibitions in the cities, would now be able to speak and convey something to men to whom I make a gift of it.”

In a letter to de:Gustave Schiefler, from Flanders, at Christmas 1915; as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 62
Heckel wrote Schiefler about his 'Madonna'-painting, he painted in Ostende, Flander in 1915. Heckel was a medical orderly in Flanders together with Max Beckmann, in World War 1. Both artists got a lot of free time in the army for their artistic activities. The 'Madonna' got destroyed in World War 2. https://www.bildindex.de/document/obj00001491

“Brücke will remain in the inner sense; only the outer organizational thing should be dissolved.”

In a letter to Amiet, Fall of 1913; as quoted in Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, Anita Beloubek-Hammer, ed.; Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 266 (transl. Claire Albiez)

“.. differences arose that hindered the publication of the 'Chronik' (written by Kirchner and brought us to the agreement of dissolving Die Brücke group.”

In a note, 26 May 1913; as quoted in Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, Anita Beloubek-Hammer, ed.; Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 266 (transl. Claire Albiez)

Similar authors

Karl Lagerfeld photo
Karl Lagerfeld 57
German fashion designer
Thomas Mann photo
Thomas Mann 159
German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate
Michael Ende photo
Michael Ende 26
German author
Otto Stern photo
Otto Stern 2
German physicist
Erich Maria Remarque photo
Erich Maria Remarque 63
German novelist
Ernst Ruska photo
Ernst Ruska 2
German physicist
Werner Heisenberg photo
Werner Heisenberg 42
German theoretical physicist
Ernst Jünger photo
Ernst Jünger 16
German writer
Salvador Dalí photo
Salvador Dalí 117
Spanish artist
Hermann Hesse photo
Hermann Hesse 168
German writer