After the end of the war in December 1919, Siddi and Erich Heckel moved into a studio apartment in the attic of a building on Emser Straße in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, which would remain their main residence until 1943. Heckel decorated the naked walls with fabrics as well as figurative and ornamental murals, of which, unfortunately, no written visitor accounts or photographs have survived. Only Heckel’s original designs, along with a few watercolors and paintings, such as the still life offered here, document the studio's interior, which was destroyed in an air raid during World War II on January 30, 1944. This painting shows part of the base area: against a dark background, figures rendered in an almost sculptural manner can be seen in a grisaille-like style—a detail of the interior also found in Heckel's “Tulips” (CR Hüneke 1926–23). According to the catalogue raisonné, this could be a fabric panel taken from the earlier studio apartment on Mommsenstraße. Another section of the base area features figures rendered on a light background, along with abstracted ornamental plants. It is topped by a broad red stripe, as seen, for example, in the paintings “Amaryllis” (1927, in the Hermann Gerlinger Collection until 2023) and “Schlafende Frau” (“Sleeping Woman, 1932, Kunsthalle Mannheim).

“It's basically the classic pictorial themes—namely portrait, still life, and landscape—that Heckel devoted his entire career to, and from which he was able to derive ever-new forms of expression meticulously", says art historian and former director of the Brücke Museum Magdalena M. Moeller (Zu Heckel’s Werken der 20er Jahre, in: Exhibition catalog Erich Heckel. Sein Werk der 20er Jahre, Brücke Museum, Berlin, Munich 2004, p. 10).
“Characteristic of Heckel’s style of the 1920s is […] the clarity, the orderly, precise form, and the implied calm and stillness of things—means of expression through which he approaches the aesthetic ambitions of New Objectivity […].” (Ibid., p. 11) Thus, his works from the 1920s reveal a greater closeness to nature and objectivity, a new order of the image with reduced, clearly structured compositions, calmer forms, and softer colors. At the same time, he remains faithful to his tried-and-tested motifs and themes. Similar to his New Objectivity artist colleagues, Heckel deliberately constructed compositions through which he altered and reduced nature, in line with his artistic principles. Despite the clearly restrained and orderly visual language, the simplified forms, and the warm, subdued colors, the artist created a still life that contains intriguing moments of ambiguity, which cannot be clearly deciphered: a linear structure in the right half of the picture suggests wood panelling, a painting, or a pinboard; on the left, a modern geometric pattern can be detected, which may be a light blue curtain or wall covering.
In this work, the artist depicts his very personal living environment—his studio apartment, furniture, and household objects—while simultaneously showcasing his profession and painterly skill, thereby underscoring his unique artistic position within the multifaceted art scene of the interwar years. [CH]