Bleyl later wrote: »The first poster for this exhibition turned out to be a special case. Concealed on the verso and protected by a layer of white chalk was a depiction of a man in a deckchair.
Buchheim knew the motif from a catalogue published by the Arnold Gallery in Dresden in Thanks to being camouflaged on the verso of a painting that was not branded as »degenerate«, the work Pechstein Sleeping , thought to be lost, survived the era of National Socialism. The latter had visited him and his painter-friend Karl Schmidt-Rottluff there for a couple of weeks. The work is considered to have marked the dawning of Expressionism, and in a postage stamp based on it was issued by the Bundespost.
In the two of them met again at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, where they were both studying architecture. Through conversations with Kirchner and Bleyl and joint practice in drawing, Heckel gradually realised that he had an artistic talent. The figures here are outlined in black. Finer, internal details have been largely done without and with them any individualisation of the persons depicted.
The scene of men and women bathing together mirrors ideas of an ideal way of life that enabled the sexes to live together freely with nature. Both motif and attitude are in very much keeping with the Life Reform movement which was widespread at the time. In the period before the First World War, Heckel did numerous enigmatic paintings with indefinite spatial situations and ambiguous possibilities of interpretation. The passive members promoted the artists and also supported them in non-material ways.
The annual portfolios were not just a quid pro quo for the membership dues, but also served to disseminate their art and make it better known to an audience.
