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Lot Essay
Two women are shown lolling around on a red surface, perhaps a sofa or daybed, their heads affectionately rested against one another. Nearly the entire image is filled with a few solid blocks of color, surrounded by broad, black outlines: the women's clothes in dark blue, ochre and green, the background in bright red.
The clearly outlined color fields are reminiscent of medieval cloisonné enamel, folk art and textiles, art forms that Erich Heckel and the artists of the Brücke group were looking at in their search for an "unadulterated" simplicity and basic humanity in art. They wished to express themselves in a manner that was powerful and immediate, and found inspiration in ancient, decorative, as well as non-European art. This went hand in hand with a choice of humble, often intimate subjects, such as the two women at rest depicted in the present woodcut.
Zwei ruhende Frauen (Two resting Women) is one of the earliest and most important of Erich Heckel's large color prints. It was created in 1909, when the artist was 26 years old. In February that year, Heckel had travelled to Italy, and the print was probably made after his return to Dresden, in the autumn or winter of 1909. The subject does not correspond to any known painting or preparatory drawing. In fact, as Leopold Reidemeister pointed out, this woodcut with its flat color surfaces and bold outlines anticipates the manner of the Brücke painting style of the following years (op. cit., 1983, p. 9). It was the resistance of the wood and the unwieldiness of the woodcut medium that drove Heckel towards a reduction of lines and shapes, which reached its first apogee in the present work and the near-contemporary color woodcut Liegende.
Shaped by the rough material, these early woodcuts influenced and ultimately came to define the art of the Brücke. It is this precedence which led Reidemeister to declare: "Nothing is as much Brücke as a woodcut" (ibid., p. 7). It would take another year before Heckel (or in fact Kirchner, Pechstein or Schmidt-Rottluff) would produce paintings of equal boldness and formal rigor. In this context, a double-sided painting by Heckel, sold by Christie's in London in 2001, offers a fascinating comparison. On the recto the painting of 1908 depicts a landscape painted with broad, open brushstrokes in the manner of the Fauves. The verso, painted around 1910-1911, shows Heckel and his girlfriend Sidi dancing in a room. Reminiscent of a woodcut, the image consists largely of solid fields of color, separated by hard, black outlines.
Zwei ruhende Frauen was printed from two blocks, a color block and a line block. The color block, a flat wooden board or metal plate, was painted with a brush in the four different colors—red, blue, ochre and green—and then printed like a monotype. No two impressions are identical and the present impression is particularly rich and vibrant in coloration.
The line block was cut into a coarse wooden board, with the grain of the plank still clearly visible. Heckel inked the block in black and printed it on top of the colors. In some areas of overlap, where the grain of the wood is most pronounced, the black block allows the color underneath to shine through. It seems that the artist, rather than using a vertical printing press (as usual for woodcuts), employed a rolling press instead. In at least two impressions, the present one and the one at the Germanische Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, this resulted in the line block slipping sideways. As can be seen at the right edge, the block has been pushed over the color inks, which lead to a blurring of colors. This effect, reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's squeegee paintings, evidently did not disturb Heckel: he signed these slipped impressions and considered them fully valid works. In fact, he may have enjoyed the variations and the element of chance this printing method brought with it. What Tobia Bezzola wrote about the woodcuts of Paul Gauguin can also be said about the early woodcuts of Heckel: “The malfunctions, mistakes and accidents, the unintentional and undesired, the slip-ups, and the recalcitrant impulses of the tools and the materials give rise to a completely new dynamism and directness of artistic expression” (T. Bezzola, "Running Wild as Theme and Method" in T. Bezzola and E. Prelinger, Paul Gauguin: The Prints, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich, 2012, p. 15).
Nine impressions of this woodcut are known: eight in color, including three in German public collections (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and one printed in black only.
The clearly outlined color fields are reminiscent of medieval cloisonné enamel, folk art and textiles, art forms that Erich Heckel and the artists of the Brücke group were looking at in their search for an "unadulterated" simplicity and basic humanity in art. They wished to express themselves in a manner that was powerful and immediate, and found inspiration in ancient, decorative, as well as non-European art. This went hand in hand with a choice of humble, often intimate subjects, such as the two women at rest depicted in the present woodcut.
Zwei ruhende Frauen (Two resting Women) is one of the earliest and most important of Erich Heckel's large color prints. It was created in 1909, when the artist was 26 years old. In February that year, Heckel had travelled to Italy, and the print was probably made after his return to Dresden, in the autumn or winter of 1909. The subject does not correspond to any known painting or preparatory drawing. In fact, as Leopold Reidemeister pointed out, this woodcut with its flat color surfaces and bold outlines anticipates the manner of the Brücke painting style of the following years (op. cit., 1983, p. 9). It was the resistance of the wood and the unwieldiness of the woodcut medium that drove Heckel towards a reduction of lines and shapes, which reached its first apogee in the present work and the near-contemporary color woodcut Liegende.
Shaped by the rough material, these early woodcuts influenced and ultimately came to define the art of the Brücke. It is this precedence which led Reidemeister to declare: "Nothing is as much Brücke as a woodcut" (ibid., p. 7). It would take another year before Heckel (or in fact Kirchner, Pechstein or Schmidt-Rottluff) would produce paintings of equal boldness and formal rigor. In this context, a double-sided painting by Heckel, sold by Christie's in London in 2001, offers a fascinating comparison. On the recto the painting of 1908 depicts a landscape painted with broad, open brushstrokes in the manner of the Fauves. The verso, painted around 1910-1911, shows Heckel and his girlfriend Sidi dancing in a room. Reminiscent of a woodcut, the image consists largely of solid fields of color, separated by hard, black outlines.
Zwei ruhende Frauen was printed from two blocks, a color block and a line block. The color block, a flat wooden board or metal plate, was painted with a brush in the four different colors—red, blue, ochre and green—and then printed like a monotype. No two impressions are identical and the present impression is particularly rich and vibrant in coloration.
The line block was cut into a coarse wooden board, with the grain of the plank still clearly visible. Heckel inked the block in black and printed it on top of the colors. In some areas of overlap, where the grain of the wood is most pronounced, the black block allows the color underneath to shine through. It seems that the artist, rather than using a vertical printing press (as usual for woodcuts), employed a rolling press instead. In at least two impressions, the present one and the one at the Germanische Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, this resulted in the line block slipping sideways. As can be seen at the right edge, the block has been pushed over the color inks, which lead to a blurring of colors. This effect, reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's squeegee paintings, evidently did not disturb Heckel: he signed these slipped impressions and considered them fully valid works. In fact, he may have enjoyed the variations and the element of chance this printing method brought with it. What Tobia Bezzola wrote about the woodcuts of Paul Gauguin can also be said about the early woodcuts of Heckel: “The malfunctions, mistakes and accidents, the unintentional and undesired, the slip-ups, and the recalcitrant impulses of the tools and the materials give rise to a completely new dynamism and directness of artistic expression” (T. Bezzola, "Running Wild as Theme and Method" in T. Bezzola and E. Prelinger, Paul Gauguin: The Prints, exh. cat., Kunsthaus Zürich, 2012, p. 15).
Nine impressions of this woodcut are known: eight in color, including three in German public collections (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and one printed in black only.