Collection Publications: Klinger to Kollwitz Labels1

During World War I, Heckel served as a medical orderly in Belgium in the same unit as Max Beckmann and other artists. This unit was under the command of the art historian Walter Kaesbach, who prescribed a schedule that permitted artistic production every other day. Although Heckel depicted a few scenes of military life, he avoided portraying the horrors of war, preferring to focus on starkly expressive landscapes and iconic portraits of comrades and local inhabitants such as the anonymous youth shown here.