Erich Heckel, "In Der Tram." Lithograph, signed and dated, small print run--50 images. (12in. X 9 1/4 in. image, 19in. X 14 in. sheet) Very good condition, minor mat staining, not noticeable when matted and framed. Remnants of mounting tape at top margin verso, not visible when matted and framed, no foxing, no folds, no handling creases. Erich Heckel is a very well know German Expressionist artist who was a contemporary, of Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Max Beckman. Provenance: Kunsthaus Lempertz Auction 2005, Germany. German, born 1883 died 1970. Painter and print maker, and a founding member of the Die Brücke group ("The Bridge") which existed 1905-1913. Heckel, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff, along with their friend Fritz Bleyl, formed Die Brücke in 1905. The group would later expand to include Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde and Hermann Max Pechstein. Heckel excelled in the printmaking medium, and his woodcuts are especially revered for their strong planes and simplified, expressive lines. Taking inspiration from and linking together art sources as diverse as the European Renaissance (Dürer, Cranach and Grünewald), Jugendstil, tribal and primitive art, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism (Gauguin and Matisse) and Northern European Symbolism (Munch), Die Brücke created a new artistic movement that broke from the traditional, neo-romantic style championed by the German establishment. Most of his life he spent on printmaking. Heckel’s colors became more subdued, his work more melancholy. He introduced the motif of the thoughtful, brooding or sick person, lying in bed, and increasingly took up literary illustration. In 1937 the Nazi Party declared his work "degenerate" and forbade him to show his work in public. His works are in virtually every major museum in the world.