GHENT.- This autumn, the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent is devoting an exhibition to German artist Erich Heckel (1883-1970). Heckel was one of the main figures of German Expressionism and 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 for Flemish landscapes and cities takes shape in evocative works of art: romantic and expressive, spiritual and tangible, and above all full of hope. With this monographic exhibition, the MSK highlights a lesser-known but particularly fascinating period of this leading artist.

Brücke and German Expressionism

From the end of the 19th century, young artists in Germany object to the fleeting nature of Impressionism. In Dresden, the artists' association Brücke is formed in 1905. The 22-year- old Erich Heckel is one of its co-founders. This association of self taught artists harbours the ambition to express a strong joie de vivre in a shared style of bright colours and angular shapes. This style is called expressionism: the artist tries to depict the inner emotional life through form and colour, rather than depicting objective reality.

Artists' ties

At the outbreak of World War I, Heckel is a young man in his thirties. Despite this, he already enjoys a solid reputation in Germany. During the war, he gets to know Flanders. As an orderly for the Red Cross, he travels to Ghent, Roeselare and Ostend. The hospital train, put together by Walter Kaesbach, a curator at the Berlin Nationalgalerie, brings other painters and writers to Flanders as well. As a result, the emergency hospital at Ostend station grows into a veritable artists' colony. Heckel meets James Ensor there, and develops a special friendship with his fellow nurse, the young poet Ernst Morwitz, whose literary world has an important influence on Heckel's visual work.

Art in wartime

During the war, Heckel's artistic work continues as before. As painting materials are hard to come by, he makes do with what is available: coarsely woven linen and diluted tempera. For his wood engravings, he uses mahogany recovered from the panelling of the station's waiting room. While on leave in Germany, Heckel continues to work, establishing contacts with collectors and making plans for exhibitions.

Enthused by the Flemish landscape

Despite the historical context, Heckel is not a ‘war artist’ but an orderly working mainly behind the front lines. As a draughtsman, he makes numerous sketches of the places he visits and people he observes. As a painter, he is particularly impressed by the Flemish landscape and the North Sea, with its peculiar cloud formations where the light is always trying to break through; motifs that seem both strange and familiar to him. The Flemish landscapes recall the early days of Brücke, when Heckel went out to paint in the open air with his friends Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Besides a several paintings, many gouaches, watercolours, drawings and graphic work have been preserved: views of Roeselare, Ostend and Ghent, sometimes with picturesque figures and bathers, but also still lifes, landscapes and seascapes.

Erich Heckel and the MSK

The MSK owns a fine ensemble of German Expressionism, including a 1917 view of Bruges by Heckel. With this monographic exhibition, which relies on valuable loans from German collections, the MSK highlights a lesser-known but particularly compelling period within the oeuvre of this leading artist. Enthralled by the Flemish landscape and inspired by the artistic and literary interest of fellow members of his corps, he managed to express his particular experience of the First World War in a personal way. His typically Flemish landscapes are romantic and expressive, spiritual and tangible, nostalgic and, in these difficult times, above all hopeful.