Männerbildnis (Portrait of a Man)

Name: ERICH HECKEL (1883-1970)
Brand: Männerbildnis (Portrait of a Man)
Price: 55000.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Price Realised GBP 68,750

Estimate

GBP 60,000 - GBP 80,000

Closed: 28 Sep 2021

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ERICH HECKEL (1883-1970)

Männerbildnis (Portrait of a Man)

Price Realised GBP 68,750

Closed: 28 Sep 2021

Price Realised GBP 68,750

Closed: 28 Sep 2021

Details Lot Essay Related Articles More from

ERICH HECKEL (1883-1970)
Männerbildnis (Portrait of a Man)
woodcut printed from four blocks in black, green, ochre and blue, 1918-19, on Zanders laid paper, with the Initials JWZ and partial armorial watermark, signed and dated in pencil, a very fine, early, hand-printed impression of the second state (of three), printed in the monotype manner with the colours freely and transparently applied with a brush to the blocks, before the unnumbered edition of the third state printed by Voigt and published by I.B. Neumann, Berlin
Image 462 x 327 mm.
Sheet 502 x 358 mm.

With Galerie Thomas, München.
Acquired from the above by Deutsche Bank on 4 November 1971.

Dube H 318
R. Heller (ed.), Brücke - German Expressionist Prints from the Granvil and Marica Specks Collection, (exh. cat.), Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1988, no. 39, p. 112-3 (another impression illustrated).

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
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Lot Essay

Erich Heckel's is an icon of German Expressionism and an emblematic image of angst and trauma in the aftermath of war. In the catalogue of the German Expressionist prints from the Specks Collection, Reinhold Heller and Frank C. Lewis perfectly summarise the impact and context of this haunting portrait: 'Frequently identified as one of the most striking and powerful images of Germany Expressionism and of twentieth-century graphics in general, is readily seen to be a self-portrait of Heckel. Created during the months after World War I ended, as Germany suffered extreme political unrest and uncertainty and as the defeated nation continued to feel the effects of a British blockade that prevented food supplies from reaching the hungering population, the extremely gaunt features of Heckel's face, his contemplative or melancholy pose with its sense of simultaneous expectation and resignation, appears as manifestations of an existential and physical malaise which was national as well as personal.' (Heller, p. 112)
The present impression is a beautiful example of this famous woodcut, printed by the artist by hand. The quite watery colours are applied loosely to the blocks, resulting in very painterly effects. The brushwork is clearly visible and the moisture of the coloured inks has led to a slight blurring of the black outlines. Some small areas of the colour blocks must have resisted the application of the colours, resulting in white patches on the forehead, in the ochre area at right and elsewhere. In later impressions, in particular those from the edition produced by the professional printer Fritz Voigt, these 'printing flaws' have been eradicated, and the colouration is solid and opaque. Yet it is these irregularities and imperfections which lend the print, in early impressions such as the present one, its immediacy and hand-made character, making each example essentially an unique object.
The exact date of the is not known. In their catalogue raisonné, the Dubes state 1919 as the year of its creation, however a few early proof impressions are dated 1918, suggesting that Heckel conceived this self-portait immediately after his return from Flanders, where he had served for most of the war as a medical orderly.