Heckel, was among the founding members of Die Brücke, originating in Dresden in 1905, along with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kerchner, and Fritz Beyl. These four architecture students turned to painting and engraving with the goal of renewing German Art. They hoped to create a bridge — Die Brücke — between all the new non-academic trends, and were soon joined by Pechstein and Nolde in 1906. Heckel, in particular, initially dedicated himself to engravings and lithography, carrying out woodcuts inspired by "primitivism" under the influence of Gauguin. Soon, he began painting under the supervision of Van Gogh, exhibiting his brightly-colored work in Dresden in 1905. Heckel left for Berlin in 1912 following the diffusion of Cubism in search of a new inspiration. Influenced heavily by African art and the close ties with the artists of the Blaue Reiter, he began to experiment with darker tones and more angular lines.
In 1923, Heckel painted murals for the museum of Erfurt, and was a part of the New Objectivity movement in the 1920’s. In 1937, Nazi troops confiscated 729 of his paintings as representing products of "Degenerate art", the name officially given by the Regime to describe Expressionism, and his studio was destroyed in the bombardments of 1944 and 1945. He was an appointed Professor at the Karlsruhe School of Fine Art where he taught until 1955.
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