A painter, printmaker and sculptor, Heckel was one of the founders of the German expressionist group Die Brücke (literally, the bridge). During the early 1900s, Heckel and other members of Die Brücke sought to create a link between the work of Edvard Munch and the modern Expressionist paintings. Other founding members of the group included Fritz Bleyl, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Like many other Expressionist artists, Heckel used print as a way of making works quickly and cheaply. During World War II, Heckel was prohibited from holding public exhibitions by the Nazi party, who viewed the work as degenerate, and, by 1944, most of Heckel’s work had been destroyed. After the fall of the Third Reich, Heckel took a job teaching at the Karlsruhe Academy in Gaienhoften, Germany. He continued painting until his death in 1970. Between 2004 and 2005, a retrospective exhibition was held at the Brücke Museum in Berlin, Germany. Today, his works can be found in international collections around the world, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Folkwang Museum in Germany, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Spain, among others.