This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent is dedicating an exhibition to the German artist Erich Heckel (1883-1970). Heckel was one of the leading figures of German Expressionism and a co-founder of the artists' association Brücke. During World War I, he worked as an orderly for the Red Cross in Roeselare, Ostend, and Ghent. His fascination with the Flemish landscapes and cities is reflected in striking artworks: romantic and expressive, spiritual and tangible, and above all, hopeful. With this monographic exhibition, the MSK highlights a lesser-known but particularly intriguing period of this influential artist.
From the end of the 19th century, young artists in Germany resisted the fleeting nature of Impressionism. In Dresden, the Brücke artists' association was founded in 1905. The 22-year-old Erich Heckel was one of the co-founders. This association of self-taught artists aimed to express strong joie de vivre in a common style of bright colors and angular forms. This style is called Expressionism: the artist tries to convey inner emotions through form and color rather than objective reality.
At the outbreak of World War I, Heckel was in his early thirties. Nevertheless, he already enjoyed a solid reputation in Germany. During the war, he became acquainted with Flanders. As a nurse for the Red Cross, he traveled to Ghent, Roeselare, and Ostend. On the hospital train, assembled by Walter Kaesbach, a curator of the Berlin National Gallery, were other painters and writers. As a result, the emergency hospital at Ostend station grew into a true artists' colony. Heckel met James Ensor there and developed a special friendship with his fellow nurse, the young poet Ernst Morwitz, whose literary world had a significant influence on his visual work.
During the war, Heckel's artistic activities continued. Because painting materials were hard to come by, he made do with what was available: coarse-woven linen and diluted tempera. For his woodcuts, he used mahogany wood salvaged from the paneling of the station waiting room. During his leave in Germany, Heckel continued his work, maintained contacts with collectors, and planned exhibitions.
Between their shifting duties, the members of the artists' colony had enough time to devote to their art. In addition to several paintings, many gouaches, watercolors, drawings, and graphic works have been preserved: views of Roeselare, Ostend, and Ghent, sometimes featuring picturesque figures and bathers, but also still lifes, landscapes, and seascapes. Despite the historical context, Heckel's stay in Flanders extended beyond World War I. Heckel was not a 'war artist' but a nurse working mainly behind the front lines. As a draftsman, he made numerous sketches of the places he visited and the people he observed. As a painter, he was particularly impressed by the Flemish landscape and the North Sea, with their unique cloud formations where light always tries to break through; motifs that seemed both foreign and familiar to him. The Flemish landscapes reminded him of the early days of the Brücke, when Heckel and his friends Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff would go out to paint en plein air.
The MSK possesses a small but fine ensemble of German Expressionism, including a view of Bruges by Heckel from 1917. With this monographic exhibition, which relies on valuable loans from German collections, the MSK highlights a lesser-known but particularly intriguing period within the oeuvre of this leading artist. Inspired by the Flemish landscape and influenced by the artistic and literary interests of his comrades, he was able to give a personal expression to his unique World War I experience. His typically Flemish landscapes are romantic and expressive, spiritual and tangible, nostalgic, and, in these difficult times, above all, hopeful.
On view in the exhibition
1883
Reinhold Erich Heckel is born on 31 July in Döbeln (Saxony). His father Wilhelm Julius Heckel is a railway engineer, and his mother Margarete Elisabeth Barth hails from a Thuringian manufacturing family.
January-March 1915
In mid January, Heckel starts as a volunteer orderly in Berlin. For the first time, he is confronted with seriously wounded soldiers. For a period of six weeks – sometimes working fourteen hours a day – he treats shell shocked patients, among others. On 5 March, he receives his identification papers and is assigned to the Red Cross Unit of the Fourth Army. Together with the accompanying armband (Neutralitätszeichen), the document entitles the
bearer to ‘free billeting, medical care and third class train travel for missions’. Specially equipped hospital trains are used to transport the wounded. Kaesbach heads up the
Sanitätseinheit, a group that also includes painters Max Kaus, Anton Kerschbaumer, Otto Herbig and the poet Ernst Morwitz. On 7 March, the group travels by train via Cologne, Brussels and Ghent to Roeselare.
May 1915
On 15 May, the Kaesbach platoon is relieved and transferred to Ostend, where an assembly point for sick and injured soldiers has been set up in Oostende Stad station. Although they remain responsible for the transportation of wounded soldiers, their main task is to care for ‘healthy’ ones, including the many marines stationed at the coast. Since the start of the occupation, the city has expanded into an almost impregnable war port and is regularly bombed by the Allies.
November 1915
Kaesbach’s platoon is billeted at Hotel Ellen on the Van Iseghemlaan. From his window, Heckel can see James Ensor’s mother’s shop. The two have certainly met already in March of that year, but their relationship intensifies thanks to their ‘neighbourly proximity’. Heckel offers the artist his full support, mediates in the sale of his work to German collectors, and the two exchange artworks.
March 1916
Heckel stays in Ghent until the beginning of August 1916. At Gent Sint Pieters station, he is tasked with organising the Krankensammelstelle, an assembly point for the wounded and sick. In addition to paintings, Heckel is chiefly occupied with making lithographs, in contrast to the woodcuts he created during his first sojourn in Ostend. Little is known about his place of residence, but he did visit the studio of George Minne in the Holstraat, and that of Albert Baertsoen on the Coupure which Georg von Wick, the Commandant of Ghent, had commandeered.
May 1916
On fine days, Heckel likes to walk from Ghent to Sint Martens Latem, where he visits Albijn Van den Abeele and Albert Servaes. In late May, the staff is reorganised, and Heckel is put in charge of the platoon. In his new role, he regularly commutes between Ostend and Ghent and during missions also visits Aachen, Brussels and Tervuren. He travels to Rethel via Namur, Dinant and Charleville Mézières.
Christmas 1916
Following the example of Heckel’s Madonna of Ostend from 1915, the artists’ group conceives the idea of creating a group work for the Christmas festivities, a triptych with the Worship by the Shepherds as its theme; Heckel agrees to paint the side panels.
May 1917
After the exceptionally hard winter of 1916–17, Ostend comes increasingly under fire, with shelling becoming more intense as the year progresses. Heckel is put in charge of the construction of a bomb shelter, which nevertheless drags on. To protect against air raids, the windows of the station must also be blacked out. As an alternative, the artists’ group cover the panes with painted figures, decorative elements and almost abstract motifs. Heckel closely studies the work of the German Romantic writer Jean Paul. His novel
Titan inspires him to work on a series of paintings.
November 1917
In the Kunstsalon Ludwig Schames in Frankfurt am Main, a major exhibition is staged featuring 126 works by Heckel, including 23 paintings from his Flemish period. Like all other exhibitions of his work during the war, Heckel was unable to see it in person.
October 1918
On 1 October, the Germans start preparing for their withdrawal from Ostend, which will become a reality fourteen days later. The retreat is highly chaotic: Heckel is in Ghent on 20 October, and ten days later he is in Lokeren. He does not leave Antwerp until 15 November, arriving in Berlin on 20 November.
November 1918
Heckel is co founder of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst and a temporary member of the Novembergruppe. Berlin’s Nationalgalerie acquires two paintings from the Flemish period
1924
In the autumn, Heckel returns to Flanders with Siddi. They visit Ensor in Ostend. In the same year, Heckel makes his first portrait of the celebrated artist (destroyed in 1944). Heckel paints a second version in 1930
