Sand Diggers on the Tiber

© Nachlass Erich Heckel/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG BILD-KUNST, Bonn
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Sand Diggers on the Tiber

Germany, 1909
Paintings
Oil on canvas
38 × 32 1/2 in. (96.52 × 82.55 cm)
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Nathan Alpers (59.58)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Provenance

The artist (1883- 1970); [Galerie Günther Franke, Munich]; [by 1958 to Eugene Thaw (1927-2018), New York]; sold 1958 to Dr. (1912-1968) and Mrs....
The artist (1883- 1970); [Galerie Günther Franke, Munich]; [by 1958 to Eugene Thaw (1927-2018), New York]; sold 1958 to Dr. (1912-1968) and Mrs. (1908-2004) Nathan Alpers, Los Angeles; given in 1959 to the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art; transferred in 1961 to LACMA.
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Label

Sand Diggers on the Tiber was included in a 1910 exhibition at the Galerie Arnold in Dresden, which featured work by the four primary members of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke (The B...
Sand Diggers on the Tiber was included in a 1910 exhibition at the Galerie Arnold in Dresden, which featured work by the four primary members of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke (The Bridge): Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Founded in Dresden in 1905 by Heckel, Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, and Fritz Bleyl, the name of the group signaled the artists’ intent to pass over the artistic conventions of the present to create an art of the future. Sand Diggers on the Tiber, depicting workers harvesting sand from the Tiber riverbed to be used in building construction, is one of the vibrant landscapes painted during Heckel’s influential 1909 trip to Italy, where he studied Etruscan art. This painting shows the artist’s transition from his earlier, heavily layered impasto technique toward rapid, decisive gestures and a lighter palette, which he achieved through the use of paint diluted with varnish.

Wall label, 2021. .
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Bibliography

  • Hüneke, Andreas. Erich Heckel: Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, Wandbilder und Skulpturen. Munich: Hirmer, 2017. Catalogue raisonné, vol. I, no. 1909-10, p. 65.

  • Benson, Timothy O.  Expressionism in Germany and France: from Van Gogh to Kandinsky.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2014.

  • Hüneke, Andreas. Erich Heckel: Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde, Wandbilder und Skulpturen. Munich: Hirmer, 2017. Catalogue raisonné, vol. I, no. 1909-10, p. 65.

  • Benson, Timothy O.  Expressionism in Germany and France: from Van Gogh to Kandinsky.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2014.
  • Benson, Timothy O.  L'Expressionnisme en Allemagne et en France : De van Gogh à Kandinsky.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2014.
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