Woman

1920

Erich Heckel German, 1883 - 1970

On View

Modern, Level 2, North Wing

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About the Artwork

Titled laconically Woman, this painting features Siddi Reha, a former dancer and the artist’s wife. Erich Heckel frequently used Siddi as a model for his paintings and woodcuts, although, as here, she is rarely identified by name. While Siddi’s face is finely depicted with a certain attention to detail, Heckel endows her with a high forehead and small chin, traits he often incorporated in his portraits regardless of who was his model. Siddi’s body and the space surrounding her are defined less precisely, with markedly looser and broader brushwork.
The setting is Heckel’s summer studio in Osterholz on the Baltic Sea coast in Germany. Heckel decorated the studio’s walls and its slanted roof with murals of female and male nudes among stylized flowers, seen here as the sunflowers and a squatting nude bearded man to the left and right of Siddi. Heckel originally painted the murals as expressionist idylls celebrating uncorrupted existence in nature. But by the time he made this painting in 1920, in the wake of the horrors of World War I, his generation’s hopes for a physical and spiritual renewal were shattered. Siddi’s portrait projects instead a brooding mood of quiet melancholy.

Title Woman

Artwork Date 1920

Artist Erich Heckel

Life Dates 1883 - 1970

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. German

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 31 1/2 × 27 1/2 inches (80 × 69.9 cm) Framed: 39 5/8 × 35 5/8 × 2 1/4 inches (100.6 × 90.5 × 5.7 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department European Modern Art to 1970

Credit City of Detroit Purchase

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 21.205

Markings

Signed Signed and dated, lower left: Erich Heckel 20 Signed and dated, verso: 1920 Erich Heckel Signed and dated, on stretcher: Erich Heckel frau 1920

Provenance

1921-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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