Emil Nolde - Blumen, 1930 - Aquarell
EMIL NOLDE
Flowers . Probably 1930 years.
Watercolor.
Signed lower right. On delicate Japan 48 x 34.5 cm (18.8 x 13.5 in), the full sheet.
With a photo expertise from Dr. Manfred Reuther, Seebüll Ada and Emil Nolde Foundation
Emil Hansen was born on August 7, 1867 in the German-Danish border region. He later adopted the name of his hometown Nolde as his stage name. After an apprenticeship as a furniture draftsman and wood carver in Flensburg from 1884 to 1888, he worked for various furniture factories in Munich, Karlsruhe and Berlin. In 1892 Nolde received a position as a teacher for commercial drawing at the trade museum in St. Gallen, which he held until 1898. With the decision to become a painter, Nolde finally went to Munich, but the academy under Franz von Stuck rejected him. This was followed by studies at Adolf Hölzel's private painting school in Dachau and, from 1899, at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1900 he rents a studio in Copenhagen and in 1903 moves to the island of Alsen. By dealing with the neo-impressionists Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch and James Ensor, from 1905 onwards, Nolde moved from his initially romantic naturalism to an independent style in which color played an essential role. Already at this time he created colorful, luminous flower pictures. In 1906, during a stay in Alsen, Nolde met the "Brücke" painters, whose group he temporarily joined. In a series of portrait studies, he began to turn to watercolors. When Nolde made his first attempts at this technique in 1909 on non-absorbent paper, leaving the sheet white in large parts and dispensing with contouring in the object detection, these innovations were forward-looking. Fascinated less by Berlin city life, which he captures in a few expressive pictures, than by primitivism, Nolde paints still lifes with exotic figures and mask pictures. From an expedition to New Guinea in 1913, he brought back a wealth of study material, which he processed in numerous works until 1915. In 1928 Nolde settled in Seebüll.
The garden created there was certainly a source of inspiration for our watercolor. The light, not further defined background draws the viewer's attention solely to the plants and lets their pure colors shine all the more. The artist justifies his preference for floral subjects with the following words: "I loved the flowers in their destiny: sprouting, blooming, shining, [...]" (quoted from: Emil Nolde. Watercolor and hand drawings from the Seebüll Ada Foundation and Emil Nolde, Bremen 1971, p. 69).
Up until Nolde's death on April 13, 1956, he made countless watercolors with floral and landscape motifs. [LB]
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