Emil Nolde

Emil Nolde(bornHans Emil Hansen;7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter andprintmaker.He was one of the firstExpressionists,a member ofDie Brücke,and was one of the firstoil paintingandwatercolorpainters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.

Emil Nolde
Nolde in 1929
Born	Hans Emil Hansen (1867-08-07)7 August 1867 Nolde,Province of Schleswig-Holstein,Kingdom of Prussia,North German Confederation
Died	13 April 1956(1956-04-13)(aged 88) Seebüll,Schleswig-Holstein,West Germany
Nationality	German-Danish
Known for	Painting,printmaking
Notable work	Lesende junge Frau(1906) Blumengarten (ohne Figur)(1908) Blumengarten (Utenwarf)(1917) Blumen und Wolken(1933)
Movement	Expressionism
Signature

Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflected his interest in the art ofVincent van Gogh.

Even though his art was included in theEntartete Kunstexhibitionof 1937, Nolde was a racist, anti-semite and a staunch supporter of Nazi Germany.

Early life

Emil Nolde was born as Hans Emil Hansen, near the village ofNolde(since 1920 part of the municipality ofBurkalinSouthern Jutland,Denmark), in thePrussianDuchy of Schleswig.He grew up on a farm. His parents, devout Protestants, wereDanishandFrisianpeasants. He realized his unsuitability for farm life, and that he and his three brothers were not at all alike.

Between 1884 and 1891, he studied to become awoodcarverandillustratorinFlensburg,and worked in furniture factories as a young adult. He spent his years of travel inMunich,KarlsruheandBerlin.In 1889, he gained entrance into the School of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe.He was a drawing instructor at the school of the Museum of Industrial and Applied Arts (Industrie- und Gewerbemuseum;today theTextilmuseum,or Textile Museum) inSt. Gallen,Switzerland, from 1892 to 1898.He eventually left this job to finally pursue his dream of becoming an independent artist.

Career

As a child he had loved to paint and draw, but he was already 31 by the time he pursued this new career. When he was rejected by theMunich Academy of Fine Artsin 1898, he spent the next three years taking private painting classes, visiting Paris, and becoming familiar with the contemporary impressionist scene that was popular at this time. He married Danish actress Ada Vilstrup in 1902, and moved to Berlin, where he would meet collector Gustav Schiefler and artistKarl Schmidt-Rottluff,both of whom would advocate his work later in life. From that year, he named himself after his birthplace.

He became a member of the revolutionary expressionist groupDie Brücke(The Bridge), ofDresden,in 1906, upon the group's invitation. This association lasted only until the end of the following year.He was a member of theBerlin Secessionfrom 1908 to 1910, but was then excluded owing to a disagreement with the leadership.In Berlin, Nolde was strongly influenced by the collections of theVölkerkundemuseumin what was then Königgrätzer Straße, which he visited repeatedly and where he made over 120 drawings of exhibits from the Global South. His studies resulted in works such asMan, Woman and Cat(1912), in which Nolde depictedKing Njoya's throne “Mandu Yenu”, which came to Germany from Cameroon under controversial circumstances, only slightly altered.He exhibited withWassily Kandinsky's Munich-based groupDer Blaue Reiter(The Blue Rider) in 1912; by this time he had achieved some fame, and was able to support himself through his art.

Politics

Nolde was a supporter of theNational Socialist German Workers' Partyfrom the early 1920s, having become a member of its Danish section.He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about Jewish artists, and considered Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style.This view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notablyJoseph GoebbelsandFritz Hippler.

Degenerate art

However,Adolf Hitlerrejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art",and the Nazi regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great esteem in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more than those of any other artist.Some were included in theEntartete Kunstexhibitionof 1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to NaziGauleiterBaldur von Schirachin Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941. Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He called them the "Unpainted Pictures".

In 1942, Nolde wrote:

There is silver blue, sky blue and thunder blue. Every color holds within it a soul, which makes me happy or repels me, and which acts as a stimulus. To a person who has no art in him, colors are colors, tones tones...and that is all. All their consequences for the human spirit, which range between heaven to hell, just go unnoticed.

Post war

AfterWorld War II,Nolde was once again honoured, receiving thePour le Mérite.

While acknowledging his success as a brilliant colourist, greater awareness of Nolde's commitment to Nazism and a discussion of the relationship between his politics, denunciation of non-Jewish adversaries as Jews, and his art is considered in more recent scholarship.A recent exhibition (Emile Nolde: A German Legend, The Artist during the Nazi Regime,Berlin National Gallery, 2019) examined Nolde's self-professed Nazi leanings, and the tendency of postwar art historians to downplay them.

Death

He died inSeebüll,now part ofNeukirchen,in 1956. TheNolde Stiftung Seebüll(The Nolde Foundation at Seebull) was created the same year and opened a museum dedicated to his life and work in 1957.

Body of work

Apart from paintings, Nolde's work includes many prints, often in color, andwatercolorpaintings of varied subjects (landscapes, religious images, flowers, stormy seas and scenes from Berlin nightlife). A famous series of paintings covers the GermanNew GuineaExpedition, visiting theSouth Seas,Moscow,Siberia,Korea,Japan,andChina.The Schieflercatalogue raisonnéof his prints describes 231etchings,197woodcuts,83lithographs,and fourhectographs.He named a wartime series of 1300 works in watercolor on Japanese paper "Unpainted Paintings",made in the shadow of Hitler's decree.

Religious motifs

Although religious images make up a relatively small part of Nolde's artistic oeuvre, he considered some to be "milestones" with respect to his progression as an artist.

Nolde, who grew up a farmer's son in a small, religious community near the German-Danish border, was left with lasting impressions of Judeo-Christian stories after reading the Bible in its entirety.In his early religious works (1900–1904), he was unable to solidify his own style and distinguish himself from several role models,Jean-François MilletandHonoré Daumier.

1906 was a turning point for Nolde when he shifted from an impressionistic style to a depiction of religious themes that emphasized the emotion of the moment, use of bright colors and only two dimensions of representation.This new devotion to religious artwork was hastened by a near death experience in 1909 after drinking poisoned water at the age of 42. After 1911 Nolde's religious treatments—now including etchings—became darker and more ominous in tone than his previous works.Even his wife, Ada, was unnerved by his bold vision. In response to his nine-partThe Life of Christ,she wrote in a letter: "For the first few days I was only able to take a furtive peek now and then, so strong was the effect."

Paintings

• 
  "South Sea Islander"South Sea Islander (Südsee-Insulaner II),lithograph in colors, on wove paper,Brooklyn Museum,1915.
• 
  Photo of theDegenerate Art ExhibitioninHaus der Kunstvisited byGoebbelswith two of Nolde's paintings (hanging left of the door), in Feb. 1938.
• 
  "The Prophet,"woodcut,1912.
• 
  "The Burial" (Die Grablegung), oil on canvas, 87 × 117 cm, Stiftung Nolde, Seebüll, Nasjonalmuseet,National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design,Norway, 1915.
• 
  "Wildly Dancing Children," oil on canvas, 1909.
• 
  "Flower Garden"(without figure)(Blumengarten, ohne Figur), oil painting on canvas, 1908.
• 
  "Head with Pipe (Self Portrait)," lithograph, 1907.
• 
  "Clematis and Dahlia", 1940.

Major works

Nolde's work is exhibited at major museums around the world, includingPortrait of a Young Woman and a Child,Portrait of a Man(c. 1926), andPortrait of a Young Girl(1913–1914) at theHermitage Museum,Saint Petersburg, Russia; andProphet(1921) andYoung Couple(1913) at theMuseum of Modern Art,New York City. His most important print,The Prophet(1912), is an icon of 20th-century art.

Among his most important oils areLesende junge Frau(1906),Blumengarten (ohne Figur)(1908), andBlumen und Wolken(1933).

Other important works:

• Lesende junge frau,1906, oil on canvas, Kunsthalle Kiel
• Blumengarten (ohne Figur),1908, oil on canvas, Sotheby's purchaser 8 February 2012
• Anna Wieds Garten,1907, oil on canvas, Private Collection
• Steigende Wolken,1927, oil on canvas, Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum, Hagen
• Grosse Sonnenblumen,1928, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Blumen und Wolken,1933, oil on canvas, Museum Sprengel, Hanover

In recent years, Nolde's paintings have achieved prices of several million US dollars, in auctions conducted by the leading international auction houses. On 8 February 2012,Blumengarten (ohne Figur)was sold by Sotheby's in London for US$3,272,673.

Nazi-looted art

Nolde's work has become the focus of renewed attention after a painting entitledBlumengarten (Utenwarf)from 1917, which now hangs in the art museumModerna Museet,Stockholm,Sweden, and has been valued at US$4 million, was discovered to have been looted fromOtto Nathan Deutsch,a German-Jewish refugee whose heirs, including aHolocaustsurvivor, are asking for its return. The Swedish government decided in 2007 that the museum must settle with the heirs.Deutsch was forced to flee Germany before World War II and left forAmsterdamin late 1938 or early 1939. The painting was sold to the Swedish museum at an auction inSwitzerland,where it had resurfaced in 1967.

In 2015, Nolde'sMaiwiese (Maienwiese) [Meadow in May], 1915, (Inv. Nr. 94) was restituted by theLentos Art MuseuminLinzto the heirs of Dr.Otto Siegfried Julius.

In 2000 theWilhelm Lehmbruck MuseumFoundation,Duisburgrejected a restitution request from the family of the Breslau (Wroclaw) collectorDr. Ismar Littmannfor Nolde's paintingBuchsbaumgarten (Boxtree Garden).

See also

• Sunflowers
• Unpainted Paintings

External links

• Emil Nolde Selection from Museumsportal Schleswig-Holstein.
• Available Works & BiographyGalerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany.
• Emil Nolde Foundation, Seebüll, Germany.