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Dimensions: 96.5 by 120cm., 38 by 47 1/4 in.

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Provenance: Georg Rudolf Binding, Switzerland (acquired from the artist)
Karl-Georg Enzian Binding, Switzerland (by descent from the above in 1938)
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner

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Exhibited:

Hanover, Kestner Gesellschaft, Erich Heckel , 1919, no. 56

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Notes: The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Hans Geissler at the Nachlass Erich Heckel and will be included in the Heckel Catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Andreas Hünecke.
In its maturity and immediacy of style, Badende im Park marks one of Erich Heckel?s most significant periods in his extensive oeuvre. The artist had moved away from the heavy impasto technique that he was using in his early Brücke years while strongly influenced by the work of Van Gogh and Neo-Impressionism. Instead, he developed a clearer style of painting where the brushstrokes are applied in rapid, decisive gestures and overall the palette is much lighter than the one used earlier. As evident in the present work, Heckel diluted his paints with varnish, attempting to invent a thin distemper that would suit his rapid and impulsive brushwork. The distant nudes in this simplified green landscape enjoy an unspoiled natural environment as they play and wade in the water. Although painted after the dissolution of Die Brücke in 1913, this subject, a frequent one in German Expressionist art, still reflects the philosophy of Die Brücke, whose members opposed materialistic and bourgeois aspects of society and wanted to create a "bridge" that would lead to an authentic community of spirituality, freedom, and creativity. Badende im Park depicts a scene in Ostende in Flanders, where Heckel was stationed as a paramedic until the end of the war. Describing Heckel?s work at Ostende, Paul Vogt noted: ?When looking at Heckel?s works one understands that these paintings are not portraying fleeting impressions but more so, they represent a summary of experience. The artist collects his impressions from nature and concentrates on the brilliance of light, the beauty of an earth-line, a tree, a moving cloud or the quiet reflection of water. Heckel abandons detail and establishes a pictorial order which goes beyond the sheer representation of nature, reaching artistic perfection? (translated from German, Paul Vogt, Erich Heckel, OEuvre-Katalog der Gemälde, Wandmalerei und Plastik, Recklinghausen, 1965, p. 58).