Man in Brown

This self-portrait was probably painted in Erich Heckel’s studio in Berlin. The rich brown palette is offset by color accents such as the orange buttons of the artist’s jacket. Heckel was a founder and member of Die Brücke, a group of German Expressionists, and focused particularly on portraiture and nudes. The harsh angularity of the face and body indicate the artist’s debt to African and Oceanic art, particularly masks. The artist Franz Marc saw Heckel’s paintings as having “a pious, deep meaning.”