Emil Nolde - Mädchen mit blauem Haar, ca.1920

 

EMIL NOLDE

Mädchen mit blauem Haar, Um 1920.

Aquarell

Object description

Girl with blue hair . Around 1920.
Watercolor.
Signed lower right. On Japan. 44.8 x 34.3 cm (17.6 x 13.5 in), size of sheet.
[SM].
• The young woman grew out of the free flow of colors without any preliminary drawings or graphic elements.
• With the immediacy of the expression, Nolde holds on to his counterpart with an inimitable intensity.
• Privately owned for 70 years .

With a photo expertise from Prof. Dr. Manfred Reuther, Klockries, dated May 7, 2021. The work is registered in his archive under the number "Nolde A - 209/2021".

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Switzerland (since the 1950s).
Private collection, Switzerland (by inheritance from the aforementioned).

"The watercolors, the final measure of [Nolde's] directness and spontaneity, are among the best in Modern art. [Nolde] always felt the painter should paint first and think afterward," Bernard S. Myers, The German Expressionists: A Generation in Revolt , London 1963, p. 128.

essay

In his portraits, Emil Nolde is fascinated by the individuality of the counterpart. The lively expression, which defines these facial features with red cheeks and which can be seen above all in the challenging look around the eyes, is assigned to a personality that visibly impressed Nolde with the power of her alert charisma. A special quality in his watercolors is the differentiated characterization of people and their impressive typification: they show his intensive approach. Nolde's life between the metropolis of Berlin and the landscape in the north, his travels in the surrounding area and, last but not least, the excursion to the distant South Seas offer the artist stimulating models for his wide range of sometimes bizarre, location-specific but also beautiful physiognomies. One can, of course, try to identify this striking profile of a girl in comparable watercolors, paintings with references to the unknown, such as the slightly pointed, delicate chin, the full-bodied lips under the pointed, expressive nose and the hair dyed in a shade of blue. Sure, for Nolde it is important to have characters available as models in order to emphasize their distinctive profiles and characteristics and still act freely, also to invent faces in the classic portrait style, similar to types, phenotypes that show personal characteristics, similar to one Landscape or similar to flowers in its borders and gardens. Nolde's artistic language is peppered with a delicate mood, his painting is passionately heightened to the point of seemingly archaic stylization. Thus, this portrait, with its subtly chosen colors, fits in with the artist's fascinating oeuvre alongside the color-intensive landscape watercolors, poignant watercolors with religious themes, with emphatic studies in the South Seas and the wonderful pictures of flowers and flowers. [MvL]