Kunsthandlung Schames, Frankfurt
Dr Wilhelm & Nechama Bodenheimer, Germany (acquired from the above between 1922 and 1924)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Frankfurt, Kunsthandlung Schames, 1916, no. 26 (titled Langer Kanal)
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (on loan between 1988 and 2016)

Paul Vogt, Erich Heckel, Recklinghausen, 1965, no. 12, illustrated p. 1916

The canvas is not lined and there appear to be no signs of retouching visible under UV light. The canvas is slightly undulating. There are four small pin holes to the upper left quadrant, which are inherent to the coarse weave of the canvas. There is a small paint loss to the lower right corner which appears to have been consolidated. This work is in overall good condition and might benefit from a clean.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In its maturity and immediacy of style, Kanäle (bei Ostende) is an outstanding example of one of the most significant periods in Erich Heckel's extensive œuvre. Richly painted with jewel-like colours and full of swirling, windswept energy, it depicts a scene along the banks of the canal at Ostende where Heckel was stationed during the Great War as a volunteer medical orderly.

A passionate and self-taught artist, Heckel co-founded the influential Die Brücke group in Berlin in 1905 – just as Fauvism was beginning to develop in France – together with his friends and contemporaries Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Scmidt-Rottluff and Fritz Bleyl. Inspired by the work of artists such as Edvard Munch and Vincent van Gogh, the members of Die Brücke lived and worked together for nearly ten years, evolving their own non-descriptive, inward-searching art and producing joint exhibitions and publications which today provide a rare and important record of the birth of early Expressionism. Heckel perfected the technique of painting in the impulsive and immediate manner favoured by the Die Brücke artists, developing a masterful ability to capture and convey his own emotional response to a landscape in the pictures he produced. His painting of this period tended towards a sober melancholy, expressively haunted by his sympathy for his fellow man, which soon lead to a reputation as the Romantic of the group. A spirited and animating force behind the movement, when Die Brücke was formally dissolved in 1913 it marked a turning point in Heckel’s œuvre. The landscapes that followed are characterised by a new lyricism: a distinctly dramatic and poetic quality suggestive of the increasing influence of the Blaue Reiter artists – whom Heckel had met in 1912 – and their affinity for bold directional lines. 

Kanäle (bei Ostende), painted in 1916, is a particularly vivid work from the war years in Flanders. Due to military considerations, drawing and painting en plein air were prohibited and Heckel's canvases from these years emerged as a substitute for his experiences with nature. Signifying something beyond the anecdotal content of the painting, ordinary scenes are thus imbued with an almost universal meaning as compellingly symbolic as a painting by Edvard Munch. Where the Norwegian artist is flowing and cursive in his approach, however, Heckel accentuates angularities and primitive qualities. His lines are elongated and his colours vibrate with an intensity that reveals the artist’s peculiar sensitivity to light. In Kanäle (bei Ostende), the composition is dominated by the translucent blue brightness of the sky and water, suffused with a bright emerald green that flickers above a horizon which stretches away for miles. The paint is applied to the canvas in rapid, decisive brushstrokes that emphasize the expressive value of each colour. Perhaps most significantly, Heckel’s human figures are tiny, dwarfed by their shadows, and the small wooden boats are tossed about in the choppy waters of the canal. Writing about the intensity of the compositions painted in Flanders, such as Kanäle (bei Ostende), Paul Vogt notes: 'How different is the effect of the glittering lighthouse or the port entrance in Ostende from 1916, in which sky and sea reflect the horrors of a torn world! When standing in front of such pictures one senses the drama of the years in Flanders and experiences the landscape as an expression of human sentiment' (Paul Vogt, Erich Heckel, Recklinghausen, 1965., p🍷p. 56-57, translated from German).

Acquaintances of the artist, Dr Wilhelm and Nechama Bodenheimer, acquired Kanäle (bei Ostende) in the early 1920s soon after it was completed. It was enjoyed for many years by the Bodenheimer family before eventually being loaned to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 𓆏where it was on view for nearly three decades.