In Wetzlar I. 1933.
Watercolor over pencil.
Signed, dated and titled in the lower right. On laid paper. 46.5 x 60.5 cm (18.3 x 23.8 in), the full sheet. [CH].


• Heckel depicts the idyllic landscape at the “Old Lahn Bridge” in Wetzlar as seen from the river.
• Heckel increasingly traveled as of the 1920s, and showed a stronger preference for landscape subjects in which he sought to combine topographical accuracy with the atmospheric elements.
• Successful period of creation: In 1931, the Chemnitz Kunstverein organized a first retrospective with 100 paintings from the years 1906 to 1930 and a first monograph was published (Ludwig Thormaehlen, in the “Junge Kunst” series).
• By 1934, Heckel showed his works in several solo exhibitions before his works became increasingly subject of Nazi criticism and were presented in the propaganda exhibition “Degenerate Art” in Munich in 1937.

The work is registered in the Erich Heckel Estate, Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance. We are grateful to Mrs Renate Ebner for the kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Estate of Erich Heckel, Hemmenhofen.
Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Würzburg (acquired from the above in 1983, with the collector's stamp, Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2001-2017).
Landschaften der Brücke Maler. “Die Natur ist so schön ..”, Moritzburg Foundation, Art Museum of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, Halle (Saale), May 15 - September 4, 2011.
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 328, SHG no. 514 (illu.on p. 329).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 240, SHG no. 538 (illu. on p. 241).

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