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Self-Portrait (Selbstbildnis)
Self-Portrait (Selbstbildnis)

Self-Portrait (Selbstbildnis)

Erich Heckel (German, 1883–1970)
1965
Medium/TechniqueWoodcut, printed in black and ochre
DimensionsBlock: 53.3 × 38.1 cm (21 × 15 in.)
Sheet: 66 × 50.2 cm (26 × 19 3/4 in.)
Framed: 80 × 58.4 cm (31 1/2 × 23 in.)
Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Bruce Patsner
Accession number2021.445
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsPrints
Description
The German Expressionist group “Die Brücke” (The Bridge) was founded in Dresden in 1905 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and active in Berlin until 1913. Along with “The Blue Rider” in Munich and the Fauves in France, the Brücke was one of the seminal movements of European modernism and had a profound impact on the development of modern art. The Brücke artists were drawn to printmaking and particularly interested in the direct, spontaneous medium of the woodcut. Heckel's self-portrait in a landscape from 1965, made shortly before his death in 1970 at age 87, makes an interesting comparison to his earlier self-portrait from 1919, also in the collection.
InscriptionsIn graphite, l.l.: XXIV/XXXV; l.r.: Heckel 65Provenance2002, sold by Pasquale Iannetti Art Galleries, Inc., San Francisco to Dr. Bruce Patsner, Monmouth Beach, NJ; 2021, gift of Cynthia Bogosian and Bruce Patsner to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 16, 2021)