Erich Heckel

This woodcut of two nude women lounging in a peaceful landscape shows a frequent theme in the work of Erich Heckel and fellow members of the dissident artistic club Die Brücke (The Bridge). It recalls the summer of 1910, when Heckel and his colleagues traveled to the Moritzburg Lakes near Dresden and worked with three local teenagers as models: the sisters Fränzi and Marzella, daughters of a Dresden circus performer, and their friend Senta. The artists believed that the awkward poses of these untrained, inexperienced models were inherently more natural and genuine than anything achievable with a professional model. On the Beach presents the nudes in a pure and harmonious relationship with the landscape, simultaneously offering a fantasy of escape from the corrupt world of city life. The stylized figures make it difficult to determine whether we see two different models or one model in several poses.

From the early years of the artists’ group Die Brücke, nudes were a favorite subject: a rejection of urban society and its restraints. The popular nudist movement promoted the purity of the naked body exposed to light and air for health and exercise.