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From 9/20 through 9/23, visitors may only enter through the John R entrance. All other entrances, plus the museum grounds, Kirby St and Farnsworth St will be closed during this time for Concours d'Elegance.

Die Brucke Exhibition Poster, 1908

  • Erich Heckel, German, 1883 - 1970

Woodcut printed in red ink on green paper mounted on canvas

  • Image: 32 7/8 × 23 7/8 inches (83.5 × 60.6 cm) Sheet: 37 × 25 inches (94 × 63.5 cm)
  • 41 1/8 × 31 1/8 × 1 1/2 inches (104.5 × 79.1 × 3.8 cm)

Founders Society Purchase, Drawing and Print Club Fund

69.298

This poster was created by Heckel announcing an exhibition of the work of Die Briicke, a group formed in 1905 by four artists who had studied architecture together in Dresden: Heckel, Fritz Bleyl, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later, they were joined by Emil Nolde and Otto Mueller. They exhibited together frequently between 1906 and 1911. This poster is prized not only as a rare document of a dynamic period in early art of the 1900s, but it demonstrates the expressive and bold visual power inherent in the woodcut medium where the image is carved into a block of wood which is inked then printed on paper.

Signed on block, lower right: H In pencil, lower right: E Heckel

Inscribed on block as part of image, top center: KG Brucke | bei Emil Richter Lower right: Druck v Littmann Olbg. Dated, lower right: 1908

1969-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Uhr, H. Masterpieces of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1982, p. 78 (ill.). Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Bunkamura Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1989, cat. no. 106 (ill.).

Erich Heckel, Die Brucke Exhibition Poster, 1908, woodcut printed in red ink on green paper mounted on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Drawing and Print Club Fund, 69.298.