“In 1905 I had the opportunity to observe Heckel outside the foor walls of the art room. I took thirty of my students [in architecture] on an excursion.. ..I found him in front of Grünewald's Pieta.. ..and with the greatest of care he had copied the hands that are movingly wrung over the dead body in his sketchbook.. .Then later [ in the train through the country] he suddenly pulled out his sketchbook again and began to scrawl passionate smudges on its pages.. .. and a great roar of 'Heckel's sketching' and shouts of laughter ran through the whole coach.. .When the time came [some days later] I was delighted to find that the boys gave the first price to Heckel's sketchbook, although most of it seemed rather mad to them.”
“We saw your [ Cuno Amiet's ] work with feelings of admiration and enthusiasm.. .Our group [ Die Brücke ] would be exceedingly glad to find in you a comrade in arms and a champion of its cause.”
Erich Heckel
“I finished my first woodcut in Dresden in 1905 after the Xylographic art, cutting out of the hard boxwood the clean sketches with the slate pencil. Then followed the rounded iron, to arrive at the woo...”
Erich Heckel
“What we [Brücke-artists] had to remove ourselves from [the German bourgeois mores] was clear; where we were heading was certainly less clear. (original German: Wovon wir weg mussten, war uns klar. Woh...”
Erich Heckel
“..differences arose that hindered the publication of the 'Chronik' (written by Kirchner and brought us to the agreement of dissolving Die Brücke group.”
Erich Heckel
“Brücke will remain in the inner sense; only the outer organizational thing should be dissolved.”
Erich Heckel