Gray Slopes (Lesser Walser Valley) (Graue Hänge [Kleines Walsertal])

During the 1920s, Erich Heckel had abandoned his Expressionist mode formulated while a member of The Bridge (Die Brücke) artist group and evolved a more ordered and representational art. In 1933, with the establishment of the Third Reich, Heckel was caught in the middle of Nazi policy vacillations: some of his works were removed from public museums even as he was selected as a juror for a series of art competitions but replaced soon after in January 1934. That year he retreated to the Alpine border region of Austria.

This large-scale watercolor is one of the panoramic landscapes Heckel produced during this period. The snow-covered hut and mountain peaks suggest harmonious interaction and peaceful coexistence between nature and mankind—a protective homeland formed across centuries of time and memory. Heckel's majestic Alpine winter scene readily recalls the mystical imagery of nineteenth-century German Romanticism. In evoking these emotive and stylistic ideals, Heckel allied himself overtly with established German traditions at a time when Nazi policy condemned progressive art such as his as non-German, Bolshevist, and Jewish.