Erich Heckel
The Wood-Carver: Portrait of E. L. Kirchner1948

Not on view

Lithograph in black ink on cream paper, a man holds a small abstract figurative sculpture in both hands, his angular face turned toward the viewer, signed and dated 1948

Artist or Maker: Erich Heckel
Title: The Wood-Carver: Portrait of E. L. Kirchner
Place Made: Germany
Date Made: 1948
Medium: lithograph
Dimensions: Image: 11 13/16 x 11 13/16 in. (30 x 30 cm)
Credit Line: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, purchased with funds provided by the Ducommun and Gross Acquisition Fund, and the Twentieth Century Art Acquisition Fund
Accession Number: AC1992.238.9
Classification: Prints
Collecting Area: Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
Curatorial Notes: This portrait is a tribute to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel’s friend and fellow member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke (The Bridge). Kirchner, who had died by suicide in 1938, is shown carving a sculpture not unlike his Dancer with Necklace, also in LACMA's collection. Heckel made this portrait three years after the end of World War II and more than three decades after the dissolution of Die Brücke. It was a moment of reassessment for the important Expressionist group, which had been defamed as “degenerate” by the Nazis.

Exhibition Label: The Expressive Gaze: Portraits and Self-Portraits, 2022, Erin Maynes
Selected Bibliography: Davis, Bruce. German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989; Munich, Germany: Prestel, 1989.
Dübe, Annemarie and Wolf-Dieter Dübe. Erich Heckel: das graphische Werk. New York: E. Rathenau, 1964.

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