Erich Heckel founded together with his fellow students Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in Dresden in 1905 the later legendary artists' association“ Die Brücke ”, to which Hermann Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller later joined.

Erich Heckel was the driving force behind giving the “bridge” its place in the public eye. From 1911 Erich Heckel lived in Berlin, in the 1920s he traveled frequently through Europe and stayed regularly on the Flensburg Fjord.

Classified by the National Socialists in 1937 as a “degenerate artist”, he was banned from exhibiting and his works, which had been bought for public collections in the decades before, were confiscated from German museums. In 1944, a bomb attack on Berlin destroyed Heckel's studio and the works stored there.

From 1945 the artist, who held a teaching position at the Karlsruhe Academy until 1955, lived in Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance. He is considered one of the most important and well-known representatives of German Expressionism

The artworks below by Erich Heckel are available at