Erich Heckel
Weiße Pferde
1912
Colour woodcut on copperplate printing paper. 26.7/31 x 31/31.5 cm (39.5 x 41.4 cm). Framed under glass. Signed and dated, titled and inscribed 'Farb.Holzsch. Handdruck'. An unnumbered edition of 80 proofs was published by I.B. Neumann, Berlin, as well as additional prints aside from the edition. - Few small lesions in the image. Closed tear in lower margin.
“Weiße Pferde” is among the most striking masterpieces of expressionist printmaking. Erich Heckel found his succinct motif of horses and people struggling against the wind during his stay on the islands of Hiddensee and Fehmarn in the summer of 1912. The coarse character of the woodcut proved to be an optimal medium for capturing the force of nature and the unity of man and animal in reductive visual symbols.
While staying along the Baltic Sea in 1912, Heckel met the art dealer Israel Ber Neumann, who ran a venue exhibiting prints in Berlin. Neumann became the most important dealer of Heckel’s prints and published works such as “Weiße Pferde”.
Heckel applied colour to the woodblock individually for each printing, in the manner of a monotype: as a result, each impression displays unique features with regard to the appearance of the printed image, its colouring and the paper.
Catalogue Raisonné
Ebner/Gabelmann 531 H b.1.III.; Dube H 242 b.1.IV.
Certificate
The woodcut was included in the Erich Heckel Archive, Hemmenhofen, and is listed there. We thank Renate Ebner, Nachlass Erich Heckel, for the kind information.
Provenance
Former Selman Neuman, Kunst- und Antiquitätenhandel, Stockholm; thenceforth family ownership, Sweden