‘Ostend(e)’ Erich Heckel

• An expressive landscape near Ostend, inspired by Heckel’s wartime service in Flanders • During this period, the vastness of the sky and the sea brought Heckel a sense of respite and tranquillity • A vibrantly coloured watercolour from the important collection of Serge Sabarsky, New York "I am aware of how kind fate has been to me, that I was able to spend this time by the sea and, at least for a few days at a time, as a free man. I was able to go swimming a lot, and sketch a little now and then (…)." Erich Heckel to Gustav Schiefler (1 October 1915). During the First World War, Erich Heckel was deployed as a medic at the field hospital in Ostend, Belgium, which was headed by the Berlin art historian Walter Kaesbach. Kaesbach succeeded in sparing numerous artist friends—such as Heckel, Max Beckmann and Heinrich Nauen—from direct frontline service by enrolling them in the medical corps. Their assignment even allowed the artists to continue painting and drawing, so that their time in Flanders during the war was repeatedly reflected in their motifs. Yet, unlike his artist friends, Heckel did not depict the horrors of war he had experienced; rather, he focused on human vulnerability and transience, which he experienced more intensely than each time during the war. For him, trips to the seaside offered respite from the harrowing experiences of serving as a medic in the military hospital. During these war years, he painted numerous landscapes, including many expansive coastal scenes with expressive sky compositions – the very kind that had already fascinated him during his stays in Dangast on the Baltic Sea. In his watercolour ‘Ostende’, Heckel bathes the almost abstract canal landscape in dazzling sunlight. The sky and dunes are an intense yellow, whilst the right-hand half of the sky, the water of the canal and the short shadows cast by the Flemish cottages and the reed-lined bank are, by contrast, a deep blue. The watercolour paint, applied predominantly in glazes, conveys a sense of transience, yet at the same time a hopeful mood thanks to the luminosity so characteristic of Heckel’s works. "Ostend is more beautiful than ever, and the sea is vast and eternal." (Erich Heckel to Walter Kaesbach, 5 October 1918). | 1883 Döbeln/Sachsen - Radolfzell 1970 | Moderne Kunst | Arbeiten auf Papier | Nummer: 26x2370 | Provenance: Galerie St. Etienne, New York; Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York, wohl 1995 bei Vorgenannter erworben; Sammlung/Stiftung Vally Sabarsky, New York.

Schätzpreis:€16,000

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